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shores of the loch on a black horse?’
    ‘Most people have motor cars,’ Rory said.
    ‘This was a horse – a big black one. It was late evening and I couldn’t see distinctly. The rider was a woman.’
    ‘Maybe you saw Black Morag,’ Rory said.
    ‘Black who?’
    ‘Morag. The woman the loch is named for. She used to live hereabouts and then – well, this was back in the eighth century, of course.’
    ‘And you’re about to embark on the local ghost story.’
    ‘Not that anyone really believes it,’ Rory said, ‘but the legend is that Morag rode a black stallion and was very beautiful. Then one day the Vikings raided and she was –’ He stopped short, blushed hotly and went on rather hastily, ‘Well, you know what Vikings did.’
    ‘When they’d finished pillaging,’ Sister Joan said.
    ‘Morag went crazy,’ Rory said. ‘She leapt on her horse and rode it into the loch. Since then she’s been seen from time to time, galloping her stallion along the shore.’
    ‘Have you ever seen her or met anybody who has?’
    ‘No, I can’t say I have,’ he admitted with a sheepish grin, ‘but some of the old folks roundabout say they knew people who did see her. Me, I think it’s just a story. There aren’t any spirits.’
    ‘None that gallop about on black horses anyway,’ Sister Joan said. ‘On the other hand it’s possible that certain places can be imprinted vividly with the memory of some tragic event and then under certain conditions – atmospheric, maybe, the event is re-enacted, like a film being reissued. But Morag’s spirit, if she ever existed, has been at peace for centuries.’
    ‘If you say so, Sister.’ The mockery had returned to hiseyes. ‘Anyway, that was probably what you saw. You weren’t scared, were you?’
    ‘Just curious. Thanks again for bringing the stuff up here.’
    He raised a hand in farewell and went down the steps at a pace that argued a familiarity with steep places that she envied.
    Going back into the cave she emptied the sack, noting that Mrs McKensie had added several tins of sardines and salmon and a large currant cake. Also, she noted happily, a shiny tin opener. There was something ironic about a woman stocking tinned fish when the local waters must be teeming with fish, but there were still people who didn’t think fish was real unless it came out of a tin.
    By the time she had put the tins in neat pyramids at the side of the cave, heated and eaten a tin of soup and washed her bowl, the morning had fled, and her itinerary was shot to bits. The afternoon was supposed to be spent in spiritual reading and exercises, but through the open door the sunlight shafted temptingly.
    She closed the door, took her Bible and sat, cross-legged on the floor, her concentration focused on the passage she had marked. If she ever made it through the heavenly gate, she decided, she would love to find out exactly what ‘Revelations’ was all about. The cadences of the sentences had a dreamy quality that half hid, half revealed the meaning. Like spray thrown up from the deep water, half hiding the figure on the black horse – and it had been no ghost. That being so, then why had Rory tried to plant the idea in her mind that it had been? Why not simply tell her who owned a horse and liked riding it as darkness began to cloak the lochside?
    ‘Sister, pay attention,’ she admonished herself aloud, and heard her voice echo round the cave with a soft, sighing sound that made her wish that she hadn’t closed out the sunlight.

Three
    Sunday mornings were the loveliest time of the week. On Sundays one had more leisure to spend in church or in the enclosed garden of the convent, and the pupils who came more or less willingly to the little school on the moor were not around to be disciplined, taught, fretted over. Peace arched its rainbow over the Sunday sky. It was a time for renewing one’s sometimes tenuous spiritual contacts, for dipping into books there was no space for in the