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be a lot of savages just.’
    â€˜Miss Peckwitt and Morag! Is it yourselves?’ Tom-Tom’s wife appeared round the corner of the house. ‘Come away in now and take a fly cuppie with me. I have it ready.’
    We followed her inside, and the men, anxious to evade the lassie’s continued importunings, lumbered after us.
    â€˜Honest to God,’ grumbled Erchy, as he seated himself on the bench. ‘Some people thinks it’s us that makes the weather.’
    â€˜Aye, an’ tse tides,’ rejoined Hector. ‘Some of tsese folks tsat come in my boat, tsey say to me, “Can I leave tsis picnic basket,” or sometsing like tsat. “Will it be all right here on tse shore till we get back?” And tsen when I tell tsem no, tsey must take it up on tse rocks out of tse tide’s way, tsey tsink I’m not bein’ nice to tsem.’ He shook his head sadly.
    â€˜It just seems as though they don’t understand about the tides,’ said Erchy wonderingly.
    â€˜They know the theory but not the practice,’ I said. ‘They learn about tides ebbing and flowing but they’re not taught that this means the water is always moving up to or away from the actual bit of beach they’re sitting on.’
    Hector gazed at me with serious surprise. ‘Tsey shouldn’t need to be taught tsings as simple as tsat,’ he assured me. ‘Tsey didn’t teach ourselves.’
    As I drank my tea I studied Hector covertly, for I had just witnessed him do a thing which I had always thought him incapable of doing and that was to remain impervious to the charms of a young and beautiful girl. I was curious to know the reason for it.
    â€˜Isn’t that lassie a beauty?’ I hazarded.
    â€˜Eh?’ said Erchy stupidly.
    Tom-Tom’s wife thought for a moment. ‘I don’t believe she’s so bad at that,’ she conceded.
    Hector looked up from his tea. ‘Ach, what good is she when she’s tsat tsin you could use her for darnin’ a sock,’ he observed with a grin, and looked at the other men for confirmation.
    Tom-Tom’s wife, who had once been described to me as being ‘not fat but needin’ an awful lot of room when she sat down’, chuckled appreciatively. I stared at Hector. He had never struck me as being particularly figure conscious when selecting his female companions. What then, I wondered, was there about this girl that he should find her so uninteresting?
    â€˜She tsinks too much of herself, tsat one,’ he explained, as though I had asked the question aloud. ‘I was down on tse shore tse usser day,’ he went on, ‘and she comes along. She was after lifting tsese coloured stones from tse beach to take back wiss her and when she sees me she drops tse bag and she says: “Oh, Hector, I’m so glad I’ve met a big, strong man to carry my stones for me. Tsey’re awful heavy,” she says.’
    â€˜An’ did you carry them for her?’ questioned Morag with a wink at me.
    â€˜Indeed I did not,’ responded Hector. ‘I told her if she’d managed to carry tsem tsat far she must be stronger tsan she tsought she was, so she’d best carry tsem tse rest of tse way.’ His blue eyes were impish as he looked at each of us in turn, expecting our approval. ‘You know she was tsat vexed wiss me she hardly spoke to ms all tse way home.’
    â€˜I don’t understand it,’ I said. ‘I would have expected every man in the place to be following her. I’ll bet she’s used to plenty of attention in England.’
    â€˜Well, she’ll no’ get much of it here,’ Erchy stated flatly.
    â€˜And yet she’s what I’d describe as a real beauty queen,’ I mused.
    â€˜I’m no’ seein’ it tsen,’ scoffed Hector. He took a noisy gulp of tea. ‘I believe she’s only one of tsese foreigners anyway and she’s