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Kirsty.’
    ‘Cheerio, Lorna.’
    And they were gone. And she was alone in the Nicholsons’ house with virtually nothing to do and all day to do it, nothing, that is, except worry about Madge Nicholson’s destination and what tricks the woman intended to employ to be rid of her.
    Kirsty had not been deceived. Madge Nicholson had not dressed herself to the nines to visit the provision merchant in Dunnet. She had gone, Kirsty suspected, to the Baird Home to report the situation and lay blame for the occurrence where, in Mrs Nicholson’s opinion, it properly belonged, with the servant and not the master. Kirsty went down the corridor, opened the back door and looked out into the yard. It was tidy enough, not like the dirty pen at Hawkhead with its slops and weeds and dung-spatters. Hens clucked and pecked contentedly about the barn and a dog, locked in one of the long sheds, barked at the unfamiliar smell of her.
    Why, she wondered, had she sought refuge here? Why had she not gone straight to Bankhead? In all likelihood Mr Sanderson would have taken her part against Duncan Clegg. It was not too late. She could walk to the Mains in half an hour, tell Mr Sanderson what had happened, throw herself on his mercy and thus spike Mrs Nicholson’s guns. But she could not bring herself to quit Dalnavert, even if it was unsafe. She was bound by the fragile hope that had brought her here, the hope that Craig would protect her, would take her in his arms and keep her safe from harm. She saw now, all too clearly, that a marriage between them would be difficult if not impossible, that Madge Nicholson would fight to keep her son.
    Uncertainty and self-pity took hold of Kirsty again. Tears welled in her eyes at the realisation that she might lose him. He was, after all, all that she had in life.
     
    The breaking up of Dalnavert’s old grassland had been undertaken at Mr Sanderson’s suggestion and with his support.
    Craig was not shy when it came to hard field work. He had enjoyed the days stolen from the late autumn season and from the winter months when he had harnessed the two big plough horses from Bankhead and made a high cut that had opened up the matted sward to air and weathering. He was no expert with the plough, but he had been guided by his father’s advice as well as Mr Sanderson’s and had assiduously prepared a fine tilth for the seed-bed. But Craig’s mind was not on grassland husbandry or cereal production that morning, or even on the job of fencing that he had set himself to do until the earth warmed enough to begin sowing.
    An old dry-stone wall marked the northern boundary of the field. Over the years cattle had rubbed it down in places and the hedges that had been planted in the gaps had been bruised and battered too. Craig’s task was to stretch new wire to make the boundary secure. He had fetched up posts and wire by cart and dug out the post holes one cold day last week. Now he stood the posts into the holes and with a heavy hammer drove them in deep and firm.
    The long swinging blows relaxed him. The shaft vibrated in his fists and his muscles stretched and sweat started down his spine. It was beneficial work for a day like today. Being with Kirsty last night had frustrated him and brought out a strain of discontent that had been in him all this year and most of last. He whanged away with the hammer on the stobs, grunting, releasing his sullen anger at the realisation that Clegg, that evil wee tyke from Hawkhead, might have spoiled Kirsty, his Kirsty, and nobody would have been any the wiser.
    She was not, strictly speaking, his Kirsty at all. But when he thought of other girls – May Sanderson from the Mains or Helen Mackenzie from the mill at Dunnet, he found that the visions became unpleasant and did not give him the sort of feelings that thinking of Kirsty Barnes engendered. He did not know why every girl he met, even casually, should be instantly compared with her. Being a man was not easy, Craig had come