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a grant of permission to build on Sgeir Caran and to maintain work buildings here on Caransay."
    "I know, Mr. Stewart," the girl said crisply.
    If she recognized him, Dougal realized, she was hardly delighted to see him. He could not blame her. What he had done was reprehensible. Disturbed by that thought, he kept an outward calm, yet he knew he must speak with Miss MacNeill alone, and soon.
    What he would do about this, he did not yet know. Clearly he owed her an apology and an explanation—providing his behavior that night could be explained. He had been a thousand times a fool, and he must admit that to her.
    "I saw you and your men cutting into the hard place today," Norrie said. "I heard your sledges and chisels when I went out over the waves to draw in my nets."
    "The hard place?" Alan Clarke asked.
    "Sgeir Caran," Margaret MacNeill explained, and Norrie hissed as if to shush her. "My grandfather, like many Hebridean fishermen, will not say the rock's name aloud."
    "It is not a good thing," Norrie said.
    "I'll remember that," Dougal said. "I will do my best to respect local traditions while I am here."
    "Then why do you build on that rock," the girl asked tartly, "when it is legendary among the people of this isle?"
    "I was not aware of any legends associated with the rock."
    "The hard place belongs to the each-uisge," Norrie said. "The lord of the deep."
    "The who?" Alan asked.
    "A sea kelpie," Margaret MacNeill told him, "supposedly a creature of great magical power, who sometimes takes the form of a white horse and sometimes the form of a man."
    "It is said that he comes to the rock now and again, seeking a bride," Norrie went on. "The black rock is his, you see. If his bride pleases him, he will quiet the storms that blow here, summon more fish into our nets, and bestow good fortune on us all. But if he is displeased, he will raise great storms and the fish will flee our waters. His power and his wrath could sink the hard rock, and Caransay itself, into the waves."
    "Your kelpie is no fellow to cross," Dougal said.
    "It is nothing to laugh at," Norrie's granddaughter said.
    "We have a tradition on this island to make sure the each-uisge is happy," Norrie said.
    "If I were a kelpie, I'd want oatcakes and whisky and all the bonny human lassies I could get," Alan said.
    Norrie chuckled, then stopped when he saw his granddaughter scowling at him.
    "We have honored these traditions for centuries," she snapped, "even if some do not."
    "I beg your pardon, Miss MacNeill." Dougal inclined his head. He knew that the Hebridean day relied on superstitions, and on traditions and a belief in magic that created a sense of security and power in what could be a harsh and unpredictable place. He heard Alan murmur an apology too, while the girl looked sternly from one to the other.
    "Stewart, we have heard about your troubles with the lady," Norrie MacNeill said then.
    "Lady Strathlin? Aye, some troubles. I understand that she keeps a holiday home on this island. Might she come to Caransay soon? I would like to meet with the baroness and show her the work we are doing."
    Awkward silence followed as the old man dragged slowly on his pipe and clicked it between his teeth, and the girl turned to gaze out to sea.
    "I am thinking the lady is not here," Norrie said.
    "If she does come here, I would like to meet with her."
    "When she comes here, she stays at the Great House and sometimes sees no one."
    "The Great House?" Dougal asked. The girl was silent, offering nothing, tipping her head under her plaid. But he felt her gaze, steady and keen, and not especially favorable.
    "Clachan Mor is her manor house on the other side of the island," Norrie replied. "It is the biggest house on Caransay. So if the lady comes out here," Norrie said, watching the smoke curl up from his pipe, "you could send her a note."
    "I prefer to meet with her."
    "She does not like visitors." Norrie cast him a sharp glance. "I am thinking you do not have her