Read Online Thistle and Thyme by Sorche Nic Leodhas - Free Book Online

road a piece to walk.” So after he’d had his tea, he went out of the house and started down the road. He paid little heed to where he was going, and that’s how it happened he nearly walked into the horse. The horse stopped with a jingle of harness and then the soldier saw that the horse was hitched to a cart, and the cart was filled with household gear—furniture and the like. There were two people on the seat of the cart, a man and a woman. The man called out to him, “Are we on the road to Auchinloch?”
    â€œOch, nay!” the soldier said. “You’re well off your way. If you keep on this way you’ll land in Crieff— some forty miles on. And not much else but hills between here and there.”
    â€œOch, me!” said the woman. “We’ll have to go back.”
    â€œPoor lass,” the man said tenderly, “and you so weary already.”
    â€œI’m no wearier than yourself,” the woman replied. “’Twas you I was thinking of.”
    Suddenly the soldier said, “You’re far out of your way and you’ll never get there this night. Why do you not bide the night with us and start out fresh in the morn? Your horse will have a rest and so will you, and you’ll travel faster by light of day, and you’ll not be so much out in the end.”
    But it was not so much for them, he asked it, as for himself, just to be hearing other voices than his own in the house.
    They saw he really meant it, so they were soon persuaded. It wasn’t long till he had them in his house, and their horse with a feed of oats in his barn. They were friendly, likeable folks, and it was easy to get them talking, which was just what the soldier wanted. They were flitting because their old uncle had left them his croft, and they wouldn’t have come at such an unseasonable time, if they hadn’t wanted to settle in before the lambing began. Besides, they’d never had a place of their own, and they couldn’t wait to get there. So they talked and the soldier talked, and the lass sat and smiled. But if they noticed she had naught to say, neither of them mentioned it.
    The next morning they got ready to leave, and the soldier came out to the gate to tell them how to go. After he’d told them, the woman leaned over and said, “What’s amiss with your wife? Does she not talk at all?”
    â€œNay,” said the soldier. “She’s spoken not a single word for two years past.”
    â€œOch, me!” the woman said. “She’s not deaf, is she?”
    â€œThat she’s not!” the soldier told her. “She hears all one says. The folks where she comes from say that she’s bewitched.”
    â€œI thought it might be that,” the woman said. “Well, I’ll tell you what to do. Back where we dwelt there’s a woman that has the second sight and she’s wonderful for curing folks of things. She cured my own sister after the doctors gave her up. It was ten years ago and my sister’s living yet. You take your wife over there and see what she can do.” She told the soldier where to find the old body, and as they drove away, she said, “You needn’t be afraid of her for she’s as good as gold. She’ll never take anything for helping anybody, and if she’s a witch, nobody ever laid it against her. She’s just a good old body that has the second sight.”
    The soldier went into the house and told his lass to get herself ready, for they were going visiting. He did not tell her why, in case it all came to naught, for he couldn’t bear to have her disappointed if the old body couldn’t help her at all.
    He hitched his own wee horse to his cart, and he and the lass drove off to the place where the folks that were going to Auchinloch had dwelt.
    They found the old body without any trouble right where the woman said she’d be. She was little and round and rosy and