Dawn on a Distant Shore
Page 149

"That long. Any word?"
She shook her head. "None at all."
"Don't matter. They're nearby."
This brought her up short. "Who is nearby?"
"My father, and Robbie. The look on your face, Boots. You think I'm out of my head with the fever."
"Are you?" She reached for his brow and found it damp, but still cool to the touch. "I expect you've been dreaming."
He drew her hand down to press his mouth to her palm. "That I have."
"Go back to sleep," she said. "And dream us away from here."
He tugged her closer. "I sleep better with you next to me."
She did not argue, but leaned over to blow out the candle and then settled herself against the pillows.
"Nathaniel," she said. She resisted the question pushing upward from her gut; afraid to put it into words, afraid of what he might have to say.
"Hmmm?" He was already half asleep.
"Do you remember telling me about the Father Dupuis who lived at Good Pasture?"
If he found this question strange, he hid his surprise in a yawn. "Iron-Dog. What brings him to mind?"
A Catholic priest in Protestant Scotland, and what that might mean about Carryck. About all of this.
"What happened to him?"
She felt him trying to come awake enough to answer. "He got killed trying to convert the Seneca, I think it was. I suppose that's what he was looking for all along."
Elizabeth curled toward him on her side, as close as she could come without disturbing his wounds. She said, "Are you certain?"
But he had already slipped back into his dreams, and she was left to her own.
"Please come," Jennet said, hopping from one foot to the other and managing somehow to eat a handful of berries at the same time. "Ye havena seen the village, and there's a band o' players come, jugglers and aa. We'll be back afore dusk."
Hannah considered. She was curious about the village, and at the same time the thought was a little frightening, to be so far away from her people. What if her grandfather should come? What if her father should fall back into his fever?
"Yer da is ever sae much better. He's said it hissel'," Jennet reminded her. "Are ye no' curious tae see Gaw'n Hamilton ride the stang?"
It was a tempting thought. A man whose wife had caused trouble in the village was to be punished for his laxity, by the minister's decree. From Jennet's colorful descriptions, it sounded to Hannah as if he would have to run a gauntlet of sorts, but one where the townspeople used words rather than clubs to make their mark.
"I'll get my shoes," Hannah said, suddenly resolved.
"Ach, dinna fash yersel' aboot shoon," said Jennet, sticking out one dusty foot to wiggle her toes. "We'll gang doon the brae i' the cart and come back the same road. Come on then, or Geordie will be awa' wi'oot us."
"I should say good-bye--"
"Ye've done that already," Jennet said impatiently. "Come on!"
Geordie did not want them crowding him on the driver's box, so they had to share the cart with a pair of nanny goats that bleated so loud and long that there was little chance for conversation. But Hannah did not mind; she was glad of this little time to herself. She liked Jennet tremendously, but she had so many stories to tell and so much information to share that sometimes it was hard to keep track of it all. Now while the cart rocked and jolted down the mountainside Hannah stood with a goat nosing her skirts, and watched to see what news she could take back to her father.
A carriage passed them where the mountain road broadened at the outskirts of the village. The liverymen were in brown and gold, and one of them stared at her as they went by. Jennet raised her voice. "Wha is that, Geordie?"
Geordie was a thick young man with a blank look about him, but he provided information willingly enough. He twisted a shoulder toward her. "A gentleman come tae see the laird, says MacQuiddy."
"English?"
He shook his great shaggy head. "French."
Hannah might have asked him more about the visitor, but they had come into the heart of the village. Saturday market had filled the lanes, and the cart slowed and then stopped in the thick of it. Jennet jumped down from the cart and Hannah followed.
"Be back afore the kirk clock strikes four," Geordie shouted after them. "Or ye'll walk hame, ye wee gilpies!"
Jennet spun on her heel to wrinkle her nose and stick her tongue out at him. "Dinna lose aa yer coin at the cockfight, Geordie, or MacQuiddy will box yer lugs." And they slipped into the crowd before he could seek revenge.
They wound their way along among the marketers while Hannah tried to take in all at once. It was not much different than market in Johnstown, the same haggling and laughter and clink of coin. Chickens and piglets, kale, carrots. A sullen young girl with a rash of pimples on her chin stood behind a table to brush the flies away from treacle tarts. A little boy was tied to the table's leg with a hang of dirty rope, crying piteously and rubbing his eyes with a dirty fist.
Jennet seemed to know every person by name, and everyone had something to say to her even while they studied Hannah--some shyly, some with open curiosity.
"How d'ye fend, wee Jennet?"
"Whit fettle, lass? And how fares the laird this day?"
"Will ye no' come an' see oor Harry, Jennet? He's hame frae the Isis wi' muny a tale tae tell."