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doing?’
    He said nothing, touched his cap, looked directly at the blatant pole concealed - but barely - by the cotton sheet. It was difficult, under the circumstances, to play the Squire.
    â€˜Are you spying on me?’
    He coughed again, cleared his throat, continued staring. He wasn’t much to look at: grey hair, a lined, weather-tanned faced, shabby clothes and big, calloused hands. I thought him ancient; I suppose he must have been about fifty.
    â€˜What do you want, MacFarlane?’
    â€˜Oh, nothing, sir... A beautiful morning, sir...’
    â€˜How long have you been standing there?’
    â€˜I’ll trouble you no further, sir. Excuse me.’
    Before I could stop him, he had scuttled across the lawn towards the house. MacFarlane had no business there; estate workers dealt only with the steward, a remote figure who ran the Gordon acres from an office in Portnacroish. The oddness of MacFarlane’s behaviour, however, was of less immediate interest than the awkwardness of my position. At the very least, he had watched me wanking; well, good luck to him. The idea of being spied on, even by such an unattractive specimen, was not entirely without its charms. But even to my lust-addled brain, other, severer possibilities presented themselves. He had, perhaps, seen me with Alexander. That was a horse of a different colour.
    I washed and dressed quickly and sat in my room in a dither. I wanted, of course, to run straight to the stables and tell Alexander what had happened. On the other hand, such a course might fuel any suspicions against us; if MacFarlane had been spying for anything other than his own pleasure, it was likely that others were watching too. My mother, for instance. It was her displeasure that I feared above all. Alexander had said how much she suffered; was
this the cause of her misery? The drip-drip of sordid gossip, brought to her ears by paid informers like MacFarlane? And who was behind it? Ethel? Hardly; Ethel was such a prim soul that she could never contemplate anything so shocking. Then who? Enemies in the village? Enemies of my father?
    An hour passed in dismal contemplation of my predicament, during which time I had almost decided to collar MacFarlane and force a confession from him. At any moment I expected to hear footsteps pounding down the passage, a hammering on my door, angry voices raised in denunciation. But the house was strangely quiet. I dimly heard a carriage crunch up the drive, heard the stamp and jingle of horses, the slamming of doors, and the sound of departing wheels; a delivery to the kitchens, most likely. Perhaps after all MacFarlane was a harmless old fool who had stumbled innocently on the sight of me with a finger up my arsehole and had been unable to tear himself away. In my vanity, that seemed the most appealing explanation.
    A little after nine, I strolled across the fields to the stable. Alexander would agree with me - MacFarlane was just a randy old goat, and if he enjoyed watching two fit young men fucking, good luck to him. We’d laugh, he might even be sufficiently piqued by the idea to initiate a quickie over the saddle-rack.
    I was one hundred yards from the stable when I realised something was wrong. A strange horse was standing in the exercise yard, a beautiful black stallion that I had never seen before. One of the steward’s horses, gone lame, perhaps, and waiting for the blacksmith? I walked on again, and stopped in my tracks. The strange horse was joined by a strange man-a tall, grey-haired character in a dusty blue livery who emerged into the yard and tossed a blanket over the black stallion’s back and led him to the trough. Of Alexander there was no sign.
    I broke into a run and reached the stable in seconds.
    â€˜You!’

    The man looked up at me and raised his eyebrows.
    â€˜Who are you?’
    He said nothing, shrugged, carried on ministering to the stallion. I pushed past him. Starlight and the others stood