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looked down at her. The insects went on swarming around his head, like some kind of a halo. Some of the midges were even nibbling at his hairy legs, which poked out like tree trunks from his kilt. I wondered if maybe the insects had driven him mad.
    â€˜No toll,’ he said, ‘no go.’
    â€˜Well, that’s too bad,’ Peggy said, ‘because we’ve nothing to give you.’
    The man sneered.
    â€˜Everyone’s got something,’ he said.
    â€˜I’m an old woman with two children; we’ve no money and just enough food and water to last the journey. We’re heading for City Island so they can go to school and get an education. And that’s it.’
    â€˜Bairns!’ the man said. ‘Nothing but trouble and nothing but expense. That’s bairns.’
    Peggy sat down on the jetty. The giant looked down at her with outraged surprise.
    â€˜What are you doing?’ he said. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
    â€˜Sitting down,’ Peggy said. ‘I get the arthritis.’
    â€˜She gets the arthritis,’ Gemma said, backing her up. ‘And she can’t be on her feet too long without a break.’
    â€˜Break?’ the giant of a man said, speckles of froth appearing on his lips and on the fringes of his beard. ‘I’ll give you a break. I’ll break your necks. I’ll break your skulls open with the hilt of my claymore –’ And he indicated a long-bladed, heavy-handled sword, covered in rust, that stood stuck in the ground nearby.
    His indignation rose like steam until it was all but puffing out of his ears.
    â€˜You dinnae sit down when the Toll Troll’s talking. You quake in fear, that’s what you do. You quake and tremble and beg for mercy. That’s the style you need. I’ve never been so bloody insulted!’
    â€˜No swearing in front of the children, if you wouldn’t mind,’ Peggy said.
    â€˜Nae swearing? Nae swearing! I’ll give you swearing –’
    But Peggy just reached out and said, ‘I wonder if you’d mind giving me a hand up now. I can’t sit down too long either or I start getting the cramps.’
    â€˜She gets cramps,’ Gemma explained, ‘as well as the arthritis. She’s a hundred and twenty, you see, and not as young as –’
    â€˜Will ye all shut up!’ the man said. ‘All of ye. Just shut up and let me think.’
    While he was thinking, I got curious. Peggy says curiosity is my trouble, but I can’t help it. These questions just form in my mind, and when they do, I have to ask them, as I like to find things out.
    â€˜Excuse me,’ I said. ‘Mister Troll –’
    His eyebrows moved like a couple of those sun caterpillars you sometimes see on the rocks – the furry, poisonous ones that’ll kill you if you brush against them.
    â€˜Whit did you just say?’ He looked at Peggy. ‘Whit did he just say? I thought yon brat was supposed to be keeping his teeth together and his mooth shut.’
    â€˜I was just wondering, Mister Troll,’ I persisted, ‘if you had another name. Like, a real name. And what it was.’
    The eyebrows went on working. I really did think for a moment that they might come off and attack me. But then they came to rest and they arched into a look of, well, perplexity, I guess.
    â€˜Ma name?’ He turned to Peggy. ‘No one’s ever asked me ma name. And I’ve robbed – that is, I’ve needed to take toll money from – hundreds, no, thousands who’ve passed by here. And no one’s ever asked me ma name.’
    Peggy just looked at him and gave him one of her old smiles. Her smiles are full of wrinkles and crows’ feet and leathery skin and a hundred and twenty years of living.
    â€˜Out of the mouths of babes and children,’ she said.
    â€˜Well, I’m nae telling you ma name!’ the Troll said. And he sounded a