Red Rowans and Wild Honey by Betsy Whyte

Author:Betsy Whyte [Whyte, Betsy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, General, History, Social History, Modern, 20th Century, Europe, Great Britain
ISBN: 9780857907462
Google: kNGsDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Birlinn
Published: 2019-09-05T20:52:28+00:00

43

Bryce had come in early because we had planned, Mother and I, to walk out to where he was camped to see his mother and other travellers. He had been pestering me to come out for weeks. ‘If you take me out, I’ll come,’ I had told him. ‘I doubt if I can come with you two,’ Mother told us, ‘but go wi’ the laddie, Betsy, when you promised.’

Bryce was staying at a camp called Pow Soddies, about four miles out the old Forfar road, down over the old bridge and then up a path through a big wood. Birds were flittering and twittering about in ecstasy as we walked along with his arm around me. May flowers were scattered all through the wood as thick as stars in the Milky Way.

‘Oh, isn’t everything so beautiful?’ I cried. ‘Come on, let’s go into the wood a bit, we might find a bird’s nest.’

Soon we were sitting kissing, surrounded with the delights of nature in spring. I snuggled very close to him, but suddenly he said, whilst gently pushing me away, ‘Lassie, you don’t know what you are doing to me.’

His words were true. I was as yet unawakened, and completely ignorant of the ways of a man’s sensuality. So I was a bit peeved and said, ‘Do you no’ like kissing me?’

‘I like it too much,’ he told me, getting up and proffering me a hand.

I could not see the logic of his last remark, and when he put his arm round me again, I pushed it off, saying, ‘Now see how you like it.‘

‘Oh, lassie, it’s a good job that it’s me you’re with and not some other man.’ He strode away in front of me as he said this. I turned at that and had every intention of going back home, but the rattle of an old bicycle made me turn around again.

One of Bryce’s young nephews was riding it. He was a bit younger than me. ‘Your mother is wondering what’s keeping you,’ he shouted, jumping off the bike. ‘She expected you about dinner time.’

Bryce came back to where I stood and held out his hand to me, saying, ‘Coming?’ I was on the point of saying no before I looked up into his brown eyes with the glisk of love in them.

His mother was a little dark woman who had lived with her three sons since her husband had died some years before. She had had ten children, and two of her married daughters were camped near her. She had a slight fear that because I was living in a house and therefore could keep myself a bit cleaner, I would perhaps be a bit difficult. I soon put her at her ease on that score.

She had host of wee grand-bairns all specially cleaned up for my coming. They gradually crept closer and closer, till there were two on my knees, and others trying to take their places by shoving them off. Their mothers hastened to reprove them, but I told them to let the bairns be.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.