“Well, I doubt she’ll faint away,” Jamie said, getting gingerly to his feet. “She’s met the lass once before, though no the bairns. Where is she, though?” He glanced up the path that led into the woods, as though expecting his sister to materialize there as he spoke.
“She’s staying at the MacNeills’ tonight,” Rachel said, and set Oggy on the grass, where he lay squirming in a leisurely manner. “She and Cairistina MacNeill became very friendly while we were quilting, and Cairistina told us that her husband has gone to Salisbury and she was frightened at the thought of being alone at night, their home being such a distance from the nearest neighbor.”
I nodded at that. Cairistina was very young, newly married—she was Richard MacNeill’s third wife—and had come from Campbelton, near Cross Creek. Night on a mountain was very dark, and full of things unseen.
“That was very kind of Jenny,” I said.
Ian gave a brief snort of amusement. “I’ll no say my mother isna kind,” he said. “But I’ll give ye good odds that she’s staying on her own account as much as Mistress MacNeill’s.” He nodded at Oggy, who was whining, a long trail of drool hanging from his lower lip. “The laddie’s had the colic three nights runnin’ and it’s a small cabin, aye? I’d wager ye three to one she’s stretched out like a corpse on Mrs. MacNeill’s bed right now, sound asleep.”
“She walked the floor with him half the night,” Rachel said apologetically to me. “I told her I would take him, but she said, ‘Pish, and what’s a grannie for, then?’” She squatted and picked up Oggy before he could escalate to his imitation of an air-raid siren. “What does thee think of Marmaduke, Claire?”
“Of … oh, as a name for Oggy, you mean?” I hastily rearranged my face, but it was too late. Rachel laughed.
“That’s what Jenny said. Still,” she added, removing the end of her dark plait from her son’s grasping fingers, “Marmaduke Stephenson was one of the Boston Martyrs: a very weighty Friend. It would be a fine name.”
“Well, I grant ye, he wouldna easily be mistaken for someone else, if ye call him Marmaduke,” Jamie said, trying to be tactful. “And he’d learn to fight early on. But if ye mean him to be a Quaker …”
“Aye,” said Ian to Rachel. “And we’re no calling him Fear the Lord, either, lass. Maybe Fortitude, though; that’s a decent manly name.”
“Hmm,” she said, looking down her nose at her offspring. “What does thee think of Wisdom? Wisdom Murray? Wisdom Ian Murray?”
Ian laughed. “Aye, and what if the laddie should turn out to be a fool? Borrowing trouble, are ye no?”
Jamie tilted his head and squinted at Oggy, considering, then glanced at Ian, then at Rachel, and shook his head.
“Given his parents, I dinna think that’s likely. Still … have ye thought perhaps to honor your own da, Rachel? What was your father’s name?”
“Mordecai,” she said. “Possibly not as a first name …”
I glanced at the fire, a wavering reddish transparency in the daylight. “Ian, would you build up the fire a bit? I’m going to cook the doves in the ashes, and then … hmmm …” I glanced back down the hill, counting heads as they came up. The Higgins children had peeled off and gone to their own cabin for supper, so that left us with—I counted quickly on my fingers—seven adults, four children—and I had a big pot of lentils with herbs and a hambone that had been bubbling since midday. Bree had skinned and cleaned the squirrels she’d brought back—perhaps I’d best cut them up and add them to the pot. And then—
“We brought thee a small addition to thy supper, Claire.” Rachel nodded toward the basket over her arm. “No, Oggy, thee mustn’t pull thy mother’s hair. I might be startled and drop thee into the fire, and that would be a dreadful shame, wouldn’t it?”
I laughed at this very Quaker threat, but Oggy let go—mostly—the end of his mother’s braid and stuffed his fist into his mouth instead, regarding me with a thoughtful stare.
“Come on,” I said, reaching for him. “You’ve got cousins to meet, young Oglethorpe.”
JAMIE’S LEG DIDN’T hurt a great deal, but it was bruised and tender, and he was happy to sit on the big stump near Claire’s makeshift surgery and let his bones rest as he watched his family, busy with making dinner.