Novels

Extract from a novel, The Burnings, especially for Bride’s day.

ST. BRIDE’S DAY.

During the winter, on the eve of the first day of February, Bridie insisted we follow a strange custom always kept by her people in the Hebrides.  The first of February was the day of Bridie's birth and this was why she'd been named for St. Bride, the fiery saint, for it's St. Bride's own day.
We're good Protestants here and don't keep such popish festivals as saints' days, but on the Hebrides they're strange folk and Bridie said her mother and her aunts always put St. Bride to bed on the eve of her day, to make sure she’d bless the House in the year to come.  Bridie cried that if we didn't honour the saint so, we risked the hearth-fire going out and the failure of food to feed the family for St. Bride, she told us, is the saint of crops and harvest, and of fire and water besides.  Since we were already on the edge of starvation, we agreed to do as she wanted for fear she may be right.
It's a woman's festival for St. Bride is a saint for women, so it was Mother, Bridie and I who must put her to bed.  Bridie said we needed a sheaf of oats but, of course, we had no such thing, so she decided any food stuff would do.  We took a large creel to make Bride’s bed, and put in it some potatoes and dried seaweed, then Bridie covered it tenderly with a blanket which she tucked about it as if it were a bairn.  She placed the creel near the doorway and went without the house, telling the two of us to stay near the bed.  Bridie cried out three times, "Bride, come in, Bride, come in, your bed is ready."  Then she joined us inside the house and we all of us chanted together, "Bride is come, Bride is welcome."  Bridie insisted we leave a candle burning beside the bed all night long, although Mother and I complained of the waste.
I hoped this solemn festival would have its good effect, but instead we continued to suffer greater and greater want.

Come that March of 1822, our situation was grown desperate for we hadn't food for the seven of us and now we knew Bridie was with child - her lying-in expected for the July.  Every day Mother, Bridie and I joined our hungry neighbours upon the shore, scavenging for shell-fish to keep us alive.
So it was decided Peter must go to the factor, Francis Suther, and ask for a cottage and a bit of land, in order that he could marry and support his family, and Father and Iain were to go with him and speak for him.  Donald MacLeod accompanied them to act as interpreter for Mr. Suther's knowledge of the Gaelic was small indeed.
As if we believed their success depended upon our labours, Bridie and I spent the time awaiting their return in carting rotting seaweed from the beach, up the cliffside, and digging it into the thin, barren soil of our allotment.  I warned Bridie not to overtire herself for the sake of her bairn, but she ignored me and worked twice as hard in defiance.  I didn't worry overmuch for I knew how strong and sturdy she was.
When the menfolk came home they were grim and silent.  To my dismay, Father and Peter at once took themselves off to the cliffs, where we all knew they would be at the still, drinking uisge beatha to quench their misery, and we were sure not to see them for hours to come.  When we did, they would be in a sad, useless state for the liquor besides.
Bridie and I called Iain and asked him what the factor had said.  He sighed and began striding about the allotment, refusing to say a word until he'd walked off the turmoil of his feelings.  Then he began his sorry tale.
"Patrick Sellar was there, dining with Suther, and we were shown before them as they sat at table.  They looked severely on us and Suther demanded our business and why we intruded on them.  Father spoke first, explaining Peter's position and why he needed a croft of his own.  Suther frowned darkly so Peter said how hard he’d work to support his family.  Then Patrick Sellar had his word.
'We know all about your ways of working, Peter MacDonald - and your Father's too.  You're both damned rascals - two idle, profligate drunkards.'
'That isn't true, Sir,’ Father began to protest, 'both I and my sons here are hardworking, God-fearing men. . .'
'You're one of the damnedest scoundrels in existence, Douglas,’ Sellar interrupted him.”
"Scoundrel himself, curse him!" raged Bridie.
“I'm afraid Peter lost his temper, hearing insults heaped on our father."
"Oh no," I wailed, guessing what was to come.
"Aye, I regret it was so.  'Our business is no concern of yours, Mr. Sellar,'  he cried, 'Mr. Suther is the factor, so I'll thank you kindly to keep yourself and your big, long nose out of it.' "
In spite of myself, I had to laugh then for Patrick Sellar did have a larger, uglier nose than is common.  Bridie groaned at Peter's foolishness but she joined in my laughter too.
"'You see the kind of man this is,’ said Sellar to the factor.
“Mr. Suther nodded as solemnly as a minister in the pulpit, and then he has his say.
'As I understand the situation, you cursed rogues; you've all been guilty of the most outrageous behaviour.  You, Douglas, have taken in your son's paramour - who isn't even of this county and so is no responsibility of this estate - and you’ve harboured the two of them, even while they live in an immoral union under your roof, although you know this isn't allowed by Lord and Lady Stafford.  You've done nothing to teach your reprobate sons how to live a sober and Godly life.  As for you, young Peter, you’re a damned rascal, as Mr. Sellar rightly calls you.  You've seduced a young hussy and got her with child out of holy wedlock, and now you expect the estate to provide for you - and for your whore and your bastard.'
“Look you, sisters, I grabbed hold of Peter even before Suther had finished this fine speech, for I feared he'd be up for the murder of the man, and, indeed, he admits he'd not have hesitated. . . ."
"Bold lad," Bridie interrupted, and there was warm pride in her voice.
"Well, Donald got hold of Peter's one arm and I held on to the other and we restrained him so, while he cursed the two of them and wished them to hell.
'Another word, Peter,' says Sellar, 'and I'll summons you for assault and violent behaviour.'
“This quietened him enough for us to make our escape, Father marching Peter from the room while Donald and I stayed back to attempt to appease the villains, for I knew too well what damage they could do to us.  Of course, they’d accept no apologies, and to tell truth to you both, I'm left much feared for the future."
I nodded and took his hand, in order to give and to receive comfort for I too felt great fear.
"I wish Peter and our da would be more sensible than to turn to the whisky," I said.
"You can no blame them," protested Bridie, "what brave man would be able to stomach such treatment as this, knowing he had no chance of justice?"
"Maybe," I agreed, "but it helps no one."
Bridie considered for a minute, then she squared her broad shoulders, "I'll away and fetch them back," she announced decisively.
Iain and I looked at each other.
"I'd best come with you," my brother told her.
"As you wish," she replied shortly, but we could see she was relieved.
So the two of them set off across the headland towards Kirtomy Point.  The still was well hidden in a fold in the cliffs and I knew they'd have to search it out carefully.  While I awaited their return I went back to my mother who was fretting within the house, anxious to hear the news.  The story I had to tell her couldn't bring her any peace of mind.
An hour or so later, Iain arrived back alone.  He described, with a grim smile, how Bridie had bullied and scolded Father and Peter until they were thoroughly ashamed, the both of them.  But then Bridie beamed a smile upon her lover and demanded he give her a dram to sweeten her temper.  When Iain left them, they were, all three, downing drams of uisge beatha and toasting the bairn carried within Bridie's belly.
"I doubt we'll see a one of them before tomorrow," Iain finished.
I groaned with anger and weariness - it seemed certain to me then, Bridie wouldn't be the steadying influence upon my brother I'd once hoped.
On the morning after, I found the three of them lying in a blind stupor in the potato patch.  It was a mercy they hadn't died of cold in the night.  I was unable to rouse the menfolk, but I threw a bucket of icy sea water over my friend and woke her with the shock of it.
"You shame and disgrace!" I shouted at her, as she crouched, gasping and shivering and retching on the ground, "And you soon to be a mother!  I wish you'd never met my brother and never become sister to me for you’ll surely be the ruin of us all."
"Aye, I wish I had no, too!" she yelled back at me, recovering enough to get in a rage.
Mother and Iain came out to us, wondering at the noise we made with our fighting.  I pointed at the drunken bodies lying there before us.
"Look you," I cried, "three millstones about our necks that will drag us to the bottom of the ocean and drown us all before they're done."
"Hush, Grace, don't talk so of your father," Mother rebuked me, then she looked sternly on Bridie, "As for you, lass, if you have no care for yourself or for your man, you might think on the safety of your bairn - which will soon be on its way, by the look of you.  Go within the house and find your bed.  Sleep off the liquor and the sickness, for your child's sake."
Bridie scowled but she also looked a little shamed, and she obeyed Mother with no more arguing.  Then my mother and I covered Peter and Father with straw and rags to keep the cold from them, and we left them there while Iain went about their work as well as his own.  I walked to the Kirk, for it was a Sunday, but I wished I hadn't when I found myself an object of general disapproval there.  I soon realised all our neighbours had heard of our drunken three at the still, for many had been disturbed by Peter and Bridie, who'd gone in the early hours to Francis Suther's house and shouted abuse and insults at the place.
The day following, the Minister sent word summonsing Father, Peter and Bridie before the kirk-session for being drunk and rowdy on a Sabbath morning.  I dared not think what this would lead us to, indeed no, and it was worse than I feared for when the elders and deacons called Bridie an indecent, loose, immoral woman, living in a state of the gravest sin, she answered them quite saucily.
"My mother and brothers are content with my betrothal, and so are Peter's good father and mother, and they're all honest, hardworking people who I respect.  Which I no do you - not even you, Minister.  For you are idle, fat men, every one of you, living richly off the patronage of lords and ladies.  You do no honest work for your bread that I can see, indeed you don't."
They called her a vicious, wicked-tongued, scarlet whore of Babylon and turned her out of the place, after telling her she must stand before the congregation for the whole of the next Sabbath and be publicly named as a depraved, drunken, evil hussy.  Bridie declared she’d never enter a kirk again, and she didn't so, but stayed at home with Mother who'd refused to attend the church since our removal to Kirtomy.

Miriam Hastings’ latest novel, The Dowager’s Dream, is available now in paperback from FeedARead Publishing. Also as an e-book on Kindle: The Dowager’s Dream.

In a crumbling mansion on the north coast of Scotland, the Dowager grows old; exiled there by her son, the Laird, she dreams of her girlhood and waits for death, but when the tenants keep talking of a monster in the sea, she becomes obsessed with the strange creature living in the bay beyond her windows.

The people claim the sea monster portends disaster and they are right for the Laird has grand plans to improve the estate. He intends to evict all the tenants from their crofts in order to turn the land over to an army of sheep.

Can the Dowager stand up to her unscrupulous son? If she does, she may have to pay a terrible price.

Walking Shadow, Miriam Hasting’s first historical novel, was published in November 2019 under the name of M W Hastings, and is available direct from FeedaRead Books as well as through Amazon. It is also available as an e-book on Kindle. This is a historical novel with profoundly modern themes: the fear of terrorism, political manipulation of information, and issues of religious fundamentalism and intolerance.

Edmund (aka Rosamund) Shakespeare, younger sibling of William and lead player of female roles with the King’s Men, is the narrator and central protagonist. When the novel opens, it is January 1606 and London is a dangerous place; the gunpowder plot has just been foiled, spies and informers are everywhere, and Edmund is a prisoner in the Tower, charged with treason. 

The Minotaur Hunt.

Miriam’s first novel, winner of the MIND Book of the Year Award, is a present-day story with a legendary model. To the people of Crete, the Minotaur was traditionally a creature of darkness and horror. Locked in a labyrinth where no-one could see him, he became the scapegoat for everyone’s worst imaginable nightmares and terrors.

Chrissie and Rachel are Minotaurs. They meet in Bradley, a rambling Victorian institution for the mentally ill. As the novel unfolds and their respective stories are gradually revealed, their growing relationship becomes a rich source of shared experience and a focus for their deepening knowledge of themselves.

Some reviews of Miriam Hastings’ The Minotaur Hunt:

[An author] “of great talent and wit, the courage to lead us through purgatory and the tenderness to love and understand its inhabitants.” Monica Dickens.

“There are echoes of romantic fiction, but there is also a whiff of grim realism . . . Underlying the narrative is an impressive refusal to attempt glib explanations.” Bernard Ineichen.

“Miriam Hastings’ The Minotaur Hunt is an engrossing novel set in a mental health institution and in the minds of some of its patients. . .The positive portrayal is very well done, yet it does not pull any punches about the difficulties faced by those with serious mental illness”, Mercia McMahon.

“No matter how dark the labyrinthe of emotions, there is always redemption for the human condition, and this sensitivity to lightness, back-to-back with the darkness, is where Hastings’ writing is at its finest. It has the voice of authenticity.” Vine Voice.

“The Minotaur Hunt is beautifully written with an immediacy and urgency that has you turning the pages”, The Bub.

 New Work

Miriam Hastings has recently completed a new novel, The Dowager’s Dream, a surreal fantasy set on the north coast of Scotland at the time of the brutal clearances in the Scottish Highlands.  The novel was inspired by the (largely imagined) lives of Miriam’s great great-grandmothers, Margaret MacKenzie and Christine Patterson, and also by an account written in 1809 by a minister’s daughter, describing a mermaid she had seen in Sandside Bay, Caithness. Although The Dowager’s Dream is set in the early years of the 19th Century, the themes of dispossession and ethnic cleansing will resonate with the contemporary reader.