at the northern tip of Bute, where the channel of water flowing down from the sea loch above divides around it. There's a good expanse of flatland below the rocky outcrop. I crouched under a tree and looked down onto it.
A hundred or more red, curly-backed cattle were milling about on the expanse of grass and bog reed, shaking their long-horned heads, restless, not settling yet to graze. Beyond them, across the water, were the three little islands. The channels of water between them were no more than a bowshot in length, but they looked terrifyingly wide to me.
Across on the other side, the hills of Cowal rose steeply from the water's edge, dark and forbidding. I felt a dreadful ache of loss for the cottage by the bay, and the beach beyond the field, and the endless change of light on the sea and in the sky, and Blackie, and Sheba, and Granny herself. I sat down and put my head on my knees and cried. I don't know how long I cried for, but you can't go on forever, especially when there's no one nearby to comfort you, and in the end the attack of tears stopped.
Mr. Lithgow knew my father, I told myself sternly. He'll look after me. And he knows I'm innocent too. He'll want to help me.
The midges were out now that the wind had dropped and the evening was coming down. They were in my hair and all over my bare legs and arms, biting. Girls' clothes protect you. Your cap, to start with, covers your ears, and your skirts go down to your ankles. But boys' clothes leave you more exposed, as I was finding out. I needed a better place to hide and watch, where Tam had told me to go, under the overhang. Then I could untie my bundle and wrap my gown around the bits of me that my father's shirt and belted plaid didn't cover.
I was about to scramble down the rocky wall to the shelter below when I heard a voice, and peering around the tree, I saw a man standing in the doorway of a little stone bothy that I'd not noticed before. He had his thumbs stuck in the belt that was holding his thick plaid in place, and he was looking over the cattle as if he was counting them.
Even from this distance, I could see that he was a solid sort of person, reassuringly big and strong-looking.
That's got to be Mr. Lithgow, I thought, feeling better. I felt as if I'd made a friend of him, even before we'd met.
I nearly fell the last bit of the way down the rocks and landed heavily on a boulder, but luckily it was covered in thick moss, and I did no more than bruise myself. I felt my way along under the overhanging rocks and found a cleft with a good soft floor to it. It was damp and very full of midges, but it was a good place to hide, and I decided to stay there, covering myself from the little biters as best I could. I could see well from here, too, and was unlikely to be seen. The sun was setting behind the hills, and my cleft was in deep shade.
Now I could see another man. He was down by a stream that ran near to the little house, squatting to collect water in a leather bag. He had a dog with him. That worried me. If the dog got wind of me, I'd be found out at once. But the man stood up and whistled to the dog, who trotted obediently at his heels back to the little house. They both disappeared inside.
Without my knowing it, my fingers had been picking at the thick moss covering the boulder on which I was sitting. There was already quite a pile of it at my feet.
Make the best of things, Granny's voice said in my head. Don't fuss.
Granny! Was she in Heaven now, or had St. Peter turned her away from the Pearly Gates and sent her down into the spitting fires of Hell? He'd have to have been a sharp man to see the good in her. But there was no telling with salvation, I knew that much. God had decided at the beginning of time who was to be saved and who was damned, I'd heard the old minister say, so I supposed there wasn't much you could do about it.
The midges