The Bairn of Brianag

I remembered Kevin telling me that Robbie would not marry, that I should put the idea out of my head; and I thrust the thought away. No one knew how much I loved Robbie.

No one realized how strong my attachment to him was-perhaps not even Robbie himself.

__________________________

I woke from a nap and rose slowly from the bed, and went out onto the porch.

Rabbit had gone to the kitchens to visit. Pete was in the lower field, in sight of the cabin. I sat in a rocking chair watching him split fence rails.

A movement at the edge of the trees to my left caught my attention. I watched and saw an Indian woman emerge from the woods and walk to where Pete worked. He stopped what he was doing to speak to her. They were very far away and small, but I could see her buckskin-colored clothes and black head. After a moment, she turned and walked away toward the woods at the other side of the field.

The sun glinted off something on her back; I squinted my eyes and saw with some shock that it was a baby's head, and the sun was shining on its red-gold hair.

So the boys of the clan visited among the Indian women! I wondered who the child's father was. There were enough of them, to be sure . . . I had known all of my life that young men sought out lower-class girls and women for amusement and that sometimes bastards were presented to them, but I wondered what happened to the children of the Indian women? Were they to be raised as Indians? That child looked completely out of place on the Indian woman's back. Was a McDonald child to be raised as a savage?

As we sat on the porch with our needlework the next morning before dinner, I asked Granny Moira about the Indian woman.

"What will happen to her child?" I asked. "Surely Hamish knows of it. Will he allow the child to be raised among the savages?"

Granny laughed. "Hamish knows he could not take a child from the Creeks. He could have his and all our scalps raised!"

"But, the child is clearly a McDonald!" I said.

"The Indians have their own ways," she said to me. "They are not like white ways, nor yet Scottish ways. In the Creek tribe, the women are the head of the family."

"But surely-"

"They also choose their own husbands, and dispose of them as they see fit."

I was astonished.