Page 39 of A Scot in the Storm
Murtagh would have mocked him mercilessly for it. With a low grunt Rory poured himself another dram of whisky and drank it beside the dying fire while Atlantic wind battered the tower walls beyond the glass.
Chapter 10
Abigail
More than a week after the storm, Abigail found herself defeated by a spinning wheel. Not symbolically or emotionally. Literally defeated.
Mrs. Gable had set the wheel in the corner of the kitchen near the hearth where the firelight warmed the polished wood to a honey-gold, and Abigail had stared at it with the cautious respect one might give an enemy artillery cannon.
It was beautiful. Also apparently possessed by the devil.
She knew exactly what every part was called. The flyer. The bobbin. The maidens. The drive band. She could have lectured a seminar for three hours on the transition from the great wheel to the Saxony treadle and assigned supplemental reading to those interested.
What she could not do was spin. The treadle wanted one rhythm from her foot while her hands demanded another, and the wool itself seemed personally offended by her existence. The fibers thickened, thinned, twisted, snapped, and wrapped themselves around the spindle in furious little knots.
After twenty minutes she had produced something resembling the nesting material of a deeply distressed seabird.
Mrs. Gable watched from across the kitchen while kneading bread with the expression of a woman approaching the outer boundaries of Christian patience.
“Have ye truly never spun?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Every woman spins. Gentlewoman or fisherwife, it makes nae difference. Ye learn it as a bairn same as knitting. Do ye knit?”
“Nope.”
Mrs. Gable paused mid-knead.
“No?”
“No.”
No one spins where I come from,Abigail thought mournfully.We buy socks in twelve-packs at Target and accept that the dryer always eats one or two.
“I must not have been very good at it,” she offered weakly.
With a snort, Mrs. Gable reclaimed the wheel without comment, though the set of her mouth suggested the amnesia story had just suffered another serious injury.
“Let’s try porridge.”
Abigail would rather have faced the spinning wheel again.
The oat pot hung over the fire on a blackened iron crane, steam curling upward through the peat smoke. Mrs. Gable explained the process carefully. Stir constantly. Watch the heat. Add the oats slow or the whole thing would seize. Simple.
Which, Abigail had learned by now, was usually the last thing said before disaster.
She stirred. The porridge remained cooperative for perhaps thirty seconds before thickening with terrifying speed. Abigail added more water. The porridge took this personally and transformed into a grey substance resembling wet mortar.
“Ye burnt it.”
“I was stirring.”
“Nae kindly.”
Apparently porridge required emotional support.
Mrs. Gable took the spoon from her hands and demonstrated the motion, slow and steady.
