The Bairn of Brianag

"No doubt he is," she said.

I clasped my hands in my lap. "I long for home. I did not want to come here."

"So, you have been exiled, have you?" she said I said nothing.

"When were you married?"

I twisted my hands together in my lap."Two weeks ago," I said, my voice low.

She rocked back in her chair. "Ach, well, never mind, lass," she said. "There are not many of us who reach our marriage bed with our maidenhead intact. Some of us are lucky enough to get there with wombs still empty. At least you are married now, and the child will not be a bastard."

My tears began to flow again. "I long for my friends, my brothers," I said.

"There is family enough here, surely, and friends," she said. "You will find plenty of company and you will grow contented. Do not repine, lass, do not be sad. You shall be safe and cared for here at Barraigh, until such time as you return to Brianag."

I wiped my cheeks with my handkerchief. "Thank you, Granny Moira," I whispered.

"I shall have a talk with young Robbie myself," she said. "A young bride must be cared for by her husband, however wild a man he may be-especially with his bairn in her."

I tried to smile at her. I did not think that she would do such a thing, but it was kind of her to say so.

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Given a land grant by a king more than a hundred years ago, the first Hamish McDonald to come to America arrived as a young man with no wife and no property. He was successful as a planter, and had added much more to his original holdings; he had married a Christian Creek woman and fathered several sons. The rice plantation that was to become Brianag had been one of his properties, and his great-grandson Robert had increased the lands further. Through Robert, who had no sons, the property had passed to Eugenia and Catherine, Cathy's and Robbie's mothers.

Robert's two brothers Hamish and Charles had inherited the back country property in the Wateree District, which at the time of their father's death had been much larger than Brianag. These two had raised cattle and sheep in the mountains, having no slaves and the land being not suited for rice cultivation. They, too, had been quite successful, and their sons and grandsons had built homes around the property, living much as their ancestors had in the highlands of Scotland.