The Bairn of Brianag

"Jessie, lass, I beg you . . . you will only be heartbroken."

I turned my back on him and went into the house. I knew that I would never marry any other besides Robbie Stewart. I would not suffer the same fate as my brother Sean, loving and not loved in return. I would make Robbie love me, somehow; I would find a way to marry him and I would live with him at Brianag.

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In the early morning I could hear the Negroes singing their way to the fields; when my maid Lily came in to light the fire I reluctantly stirred myself. I did not wish to provoke my mother's displeasure by being tardy to breakfast.

All my heart and mind were on Robbie, while I slept, and when I woke. I was bereft when I was not near him; the air that I breathed seemed void of sustenance without his presence. I had always known that Robbie was for me. Ever since I could remember, he had been a part of my life, as large a part as my brothers Kevin and Sean were, and for the past several years, my love for Robbie had overshadowed all else in my world.

I knew very well that he did not feel the same for me. I knew that to him I was the bairn, the youngest of our group, the one who had been the tag-along since I could walk, needing to be carried when everyone else could jump and run, wanting to ride behind their saddles when I was too young to ride alone, always in the way of their adventures, always the nuisance, the bother, the thorn in his and my brothers' sides.

Robbie, the oldest of us, was nearly twenty-one. I was the youngest. Cathy Randall, Robbie's cousin, and August O'Reilly, our neighbor, and Kevin and Sean were between us.

The six of us had been together almost every day of our childhood; Cathy and Robbie, August, and the Maclaines, an inseparable little band of adventurers. We had roamed the woods and swamps together, hunting in the woods, fishing in the streams, playing in the barns and fields.

But time moved us toward adulthood; our activities of necessity changed. Cathy and August and I were schooled in preparation for marriage. We took our music and dancing lessons together with the same master; our mothers taught us needlework and flower arranging. The boys went away to school. I found myself often alone at Gillean with my mother, being squeezed into stiff stays and forced to do chores I had no interest in. Cathy and August seemed happy enough to grow up; I was not.