It had been late summer when the May Queen left the dock and now, a bare seventeen weeks later, it was summer again. Summer in December, when the loch-side would soon be mantled with snow and the herds keeping their sheep close ... the heather would be dim in the glens and up the brae.

Ness McCleod tamped homesickness as her father had tamped tobacco in his pipe. No more Scottish winters for her, and just as well. Loch Haven was no longer home; not with Phemie wed again to Lachie Douglas. The thought was distressing, and Ness spared a thought for Phemie’s son Donal, whose mother had turned against him to flatter the Douglas. Donal was no blood kin to Ness, but, living under Phemie’s tawse-enforced rule had made them closer than kin in their misfortunes. Phemie had scorned her son and stepdaughter impartially for weakness and punished them impartially for rebellion, and after Lachie came calling, Donal had seen the future and left the loch.

That had been at the beginning of the brief Scottish summer... Ness would have gone with him, had he asked, but Donal had left in a rage and had taken a berth on a brigantine bound for New Zealand, where he hoped to join a deep sea whaler in the Bay of Islands.

The romance of it enchanted Ness, and she pored over a book she that that from the dominie in the village, picturing splendours of sand and sun, palm trees with clusters of nuts and fruit hanging down for the gathering, smiling dusky natives with strange patterns on their skin. And the whales--would they come close to the shore, blowing their spumes of air and foam high up like a waterspout? Would they gape their jaws and swallow up their hunters as the whale had swallowed up Jonah in the old story? Returning the book to the dominie, Ness had met the minister’s sister. Jean Leslie was a person of indeterminate age between thirty and forty, and she greeted Ness with pleasure and invited her to take a glass of milk in the manse.

"It’s bonnie to have this chance of seeing you, hen," said Jean, as they sat crumbling their oat cakes, "For I shall soon be awa’ on the ship."

Was everyone leaving? First her father, dead of the coughing sickness. Then Donal, gone to be a whaler. And Jean, going who knew where? "But--why?" Ness asked, dazed.

Jean laughed. "My brother is taking a wife," she said simply. "A bonnie wee jo, but aye soft in her words and none too steady in her opinions. If I stay on there will be trouble and not of her making. It is best I leave for it is daft to have two women in the one kitchen when one o’ them’s twice the age o’ the other."

Ness had to admit the sense of that. "Where will you go, Jean?"

"I have a fancy to sail to New South Wales, hen. Free women of education and respectable manners are welcome there, and they offer money for passages to the colony."

Ness was silent, shaken. Such a long way to go, as far as Donal had gone.

"Yon Phemie is to wed Lachie Douglas, then?" said Jean, as if it were a natural turn to the conversation.

"Aye, it seems so," said Ness with a sigh.

Jean sighed too, but there was a humorous glint in her small grey eyes. "It is the way of the world, is it no? when one wifie marries three men one after ‘tother and another can no find a one to take her?"

"Is that why--" Ness caught herself up, flushing with confusion.

"Aye," said Jean, reflectively. "I am thinking if I can no find a braw man in New South Wales, I may well die wondering."

Ness laughed, amused at Jean’s frankness, but after her return to Loch Haven she found her mind often on her friend’s plans. And with Phemie set to wed Lachie Douglas in the autumn, she was so unhappy that she stole away to the manse.

Jean seemed unsurprised at the visit. "I was looking to see you again, hen," she said.

"Might I come with you, mysel’?" Ness was aghast at her own daring, but her alternatives were so limited. She could stay at Loch Haven as a drudge, she could go into service, she could marry a local laddie (if he would overlook her lack of portion)--or she could cast in her lot with Jean and travel to a new land. "I would serve you as a maid," she said hesitantly, for she knew it would her friend’s charity that must pay her fare to the docks.

"Aye, that you could," agreed Jean, "And gi’ me a great conceit o’ mysel’!" She looked steadily at Ness. "Mind. hen, I canna promise anything but hard work, but there’s payment for your passage. It will aye be an adventure, and summer’s the time for beginnings."

Ness’ future, once drab and narrow, had suddenly opened up and she had travelled with Jean to London to board the assisted immigrant ship May Queen. Ness had not looked back, afraid to see the loch shining reproach in the sun. She carried two reminders of home; the silver brooch fashioned long ago for Granny McCleod in the likeness of white heather and her father’s old plaid, stored in the kist since his passing. Callum had no need for it now, and she’d not leave it to the Douglas.

Her first sight of the city did not please Ness. The stink in the streets and the unsavoury sights and sounds at the wharf sickened her, and she hid in her shawl to shut them out. And the folk who hung about the port! Sailors, hawkers, fishmongers, pickpockets, thieves--Ness was thankful she had followed Jean’s advice and pinned Granny McCleod’s brooch out of sight on her stays, but the constant din of flat English voices and the appraising stares of gentlemen made her huddle into her summer shawl and keep her head low so her bonnet hid her face. Jean surmounted difficulties with the same firm decision she had employed with her brother’s parishioners, and Ness followed as a lamb follows the ewe, wishing she had never left home. But what had there been for her, at home? Phemie’s grudging company and the prospect of watching Douglas benefit from Callum McCleod’s hard work? Loch Haven was prospering finely--aye, Phemie had done a braw job, inheriting money from her first husband and land from her second to live in comfort with her third. So Ness could not look back as she boarded the square rigged barque and left her old world behind with the end of the northern summer. And now it was summer again. Jean was dead of the virulent fever which had taken several of the passengers and crew at the last port, and Ness faced the future, alone. Had she had the fare, she might have sailed home again. But there was no home. She must remember that.

Phemie had seemed glad to see her leave. Her only fear had been of what folk might think with Ness following on Donal’s heels. "Ye’ll have no joy o’ him, lassie," she’d said. "He couldna bid his ain mother goodbye."

"I’ll no be seeing Donal," Ness had assured her. "I’m to be awa’ with Jean Leslie and so you may tell any who ask."

Phemie had shrugged. "Go, then. I willna have you back if you disgrace yoursel’."

Following her pilot, the May Queen manoeuvred to the wharf. Wrapped in the old brown and yellow plaid, perspiring with heat and the uncertainty of the future, Ness huddled into a corner, keeping clear of the press of passengers and the scurry of crew as the ship settled at the dock. The May Queen was like some great bird. Jean, a student of poetry and legends, had told her of the wandering albatross and how it flew forever over the ocean, sleeping on the wing, riding the winds as the ship rode the waves, falling only into death. Ness shivered. The May Queen had come to rest, and she had made few friends among the passengers. Most were English, coming to take up life in the new world. What had they to do with a young Scotswoman whose reserve had led her to shun their company? In the rush to leave the ship, they swept past her, drawing children close, lugging bundles and straining towards the descending gangplank.

Below decks the cargo of swine shuffled and squealed. Piglets born early in the voyage were now porkers--those that had survived. Some had been slaughtered and served to the passengers as slabs of boiled bacon, others had died of a fever, like poor Jean.

The passengers were eager to set on the next stage of their journey. For some it would be a short jaunt into the ramshackle sprawl of Sydney Town, for others a much longer journey by bullock wagon or dray to the new land which lay around Port Phillip to the south, land that had been declared open for settlers by Governor Bourke only the previous year. Some were joining husbands and fathers already arrived, and these women, tired and pink-faced, were peering anxiously over the rail in search of familiar faces. Four months was a long time, and most had been effectively out of touch with their men for over a year. In a year much could happen--indifference could grow, disease could strike--some would hear the stark news that the ones they had come to were dead.

What of me? thought Ness distractedly. Jean is gone, poor wifie, but I am alive and what shall I do now?

As she waited to disembark, she hung back, hoping ridiculously that someone--anyone-- would ask how she was situated, and perhaps be compassionate enough to offer her work. She could sell the white heather brooch, but it was old-fashioned in setting and form and might bring no more than a few coins. Cries of welcome rose from the docks, but none was for her. She supposed she could send word back to Phemie, and Reverend Leslie should be told that his sister was gone, but a message would take half a year to be delivered, and another half year before she could hope for any response--dear God, in a year she could be dead! And what would Phemie do, but say she had made her bed and must lie on it? If only she had followed Donal to New Zealand--but Jean had been set on New South Wales.

Ness gave up her place by the gangplank repeatedly, and drew the plaid around her shoulders, shivering in spite of the heat of this alien second summer. She had no plans at all.

Hector Campbell was also wearing a plaid at the docks that day, but not for reasons of security. At well over forty years of age, Hector had security in plenty--if security is counted in pecuniary terms. He had lived in New South Wales now for longer than he had graced his native Scotland, but he had seen no reason to abandon the outward badge of his heritage any more than he had seen reason to modify his thick brogue. Hector’s acquaintances thought him strange; a man whose Highland name and archaic mode of dress ill-accorded with his position in the new society, but Hector saw no reason to enlighten them. In his heart he was a Highlander, despite his father’s insistence on plying a dull and worthy trade in Glasgow and his own myriad occupations in New South Wales.

He had left Scotland in 1810, a discontented and vigorous young man who had quarrelled with his father and brothers just as he was destined to quarrel with almost everyone else in life. Vowing he would never work for the tailor whom his father had paid to teach him a trade, he had left Scotland with a defiant sovereign in his pocket and worked his passage to New South Wales as cook on a convict ship. He was no more suited to cooking than to cutting cloth for gentlemen, but the sailors, a tough bunch themselves, soon learnt not to tangle with the fiery Scots lad who was as quick to offer a dirk or a punch as he was to empty soaked hardtack over the heads of the plaintiffs. As for the convicts, they, poor devils, were grateful for anything they could get.

Perhaps Ewan Campbell had been glad to be rid of his changeling son, certainly the tailor had pronounced him a laddie in need of a good skelping, but, since the ‘laddie’ was his own height and almost his own breadth, he had declined to deliver it himself. Hector’s mother might have wept at his going if she had not died of exhaustion before the boy was two years old. She might also have imbued him with much-needed softness of nature, might perhaps have recognised something of herself in his restless search for the ideal. The chance was lost, and so, raised by his dour, clutch-fisted father, ignored by his brothers, Hector had grown thrawn as heather roots and hard as nails. His handsome aquiline face and flint-grey eyes attracted would-be friends, but his bitter scathing tongue and volcanic temper drove as many away. The dominie who had set him to his lessons failed to gain his respect, just as the tailor had later. Without respect, Hector could not be brought to obey, and so, like a bad business debt, he was deemed better written off and forgotten. If his father thought of him at all in later years it was to praise the lord that his unruly son had passed beyond his circle of concern.

On his arrival at the infant colony of New South Wales, Hector had left the ship and joined a company of explorers and surveyors to press along the coast in search of harbours and fertile lands. He had a good eye and a steady hand and soon carved a niche for himself as a draftsman, and though his insistence on wearing the bold green plaid caused comment, he proved himself the equal of the other men. Clad in duck trousers or the tight breeches, coats and beaver hats that had constituted their riding costumes at home in England, his companions carried heavy blankets against the unexpectedly chill nights. Hector, splendidly unburdened, simply unbelted his plaid and rolled himself in its folds, striding on ahead in the mornings as rested as if he had risen from a good feather bed. His habit of snatching sleep whenever the chance presented itself and eating whatever came to hand made him the envy of the older men, and ‘trying it on the Highlander’ became something of a game whenever they snared some new and curious animal for the pot.

Hector’s hearty appetite for new sights and experiences remained unquenched, and by the time he was twenty five, he had gone through a dozen occupations, made few lasting friendships and several enemies. Having achieved each goal, he had moved on restlessly to the next novelty. He had then claimed a piece of good land, worked it with his own strength and sweat and cannily sold it to a new arrival at a handsome profit, using the proceeds to buy more land, which he developed and sold once more. The cut timber he had cured and stacked for building, and by the end of 1827, he had taken delivery of some of the new Hereford cattle which he fattened and bred, doubling his money again, and starting a tannery where he produced good leather from the hides of slaughtered beasts as well as from the strange creatures familiarly known as kangaroos. By then, the wayward lad had changed so much that his own father would have been hard-put to recognise him. His tall, rather gangling figure had toughened and broadened, the handsome face had hardened, and, with the addition of a broken nose, no longer attracted admiring glances--except from the half-bred sheepdog he had acquired in part payment for a debt.

Since he scorned to wear a hat, his fair Scottish skin had tanned to the colour of old parchment and his hair, cut infrequently, grew over his collar and down his cheeks in exuberant waves. Beneath his heavy brows the grey eyes still looked out with vivid enquiry, but now their impact was even greater when contrasted to the stillness of the rest of his face; a visage which his enemies claimed could have been carved from a tombstone and would have been better under one. At something over thirty, he could have passed for forty five--unless something had fired either temper or interest, at which time he blazed with youthful ardour.

As in boyhood, Hector as a young man attracted friends and alienated them in the same breath. Many who mistook his flaring enthusiasms for generous volatility were shocked and surprised to find him closing a deal with a snap as final and almost as painful as the closure of a gin trap. An acquaintance who tried to cheat him woke next morning with a blinding headache and no memory of the rock-like fist that had knocked him to the ground, and a drunken convict servant found himself back in irons and professed himself glad to be safely out of the reach of the wild Scot.

For ten more years, Hector bought and traded goods, built and sold businesses. It was then, in his forties, that it suddenly dawned on him that he was lonely. A vague feeling of discontent had been growing up for years, but always before he had shrugged it off as the natural frustration of a man surrounded by others whose vision fell short of his own. The culmination of a successful deal still brought a flush of achievement, but there was something missing, and after some consideration, Hector rather thought he knew what it was. He needed a companion. He had lost his old dog to snake-bite the winter before. Rather than see it suffer, Hector had shot it cleanly through the head. At the time, he had performed this service with the same cold precision he brought to any other necessary slaughter, but afterwards he had been struck by a strange feeling of regret. He found he missed the old dog badly. He missed its unobtrusive company, he missed hurling his meat bones into the brush for it to discover, he missed the excited whines and snuffles as it chased the odd little marsupials through its dreams. Most of all, he missed its adoration. With something of a start, he realised that he wanted to be liked. Not by the common run of settlers and convicts, but by someone who would be on hand in his quieter moments. He wanted someone who would appreciate his efforts. Someone like his dog, but possessed of a greater life-span and fewer fleas.

The answer was obvious; he must find himself a wife. The idea seemed so right that he felt some surprise that it had not occurred to him sooner. There had always been women, from the start. Even when males outnumbered females in the colony by four to one, Hector had never had trouble finding a willing girl, but although he scoured his memory he could recall none whose charms had not soured with time. They had been good for the moment, for the week, or, rarely, for a few months, but always his interest had cooled. Most women were well enough under a blanket, but more than once he had been tempted to gag one, not for fear of screams (he had never taken the unwilling), but because of their never-failing fund of talk. Endearments or curses, pleas or commonplaces or praise, it had all been the same. The perky Cockney voices, the rough profanity of the drabs, the insipid tones of the few ladies he had filched from dilatory swains or absent husbands ... all had palled quickly into active irritation until he felt like stuffing his ears with tufts of wool to shut out their incessant clack of tongues. Why, he had thought in baffled annoyance, could not the women be and let be? Why could they not be like his old dog Rob Roy, affectionate and dutiful and quiet?

Despite this drawback, Hector was quite determined to take a wife. And not only a wife. He discovered that he desired more. He wanted bairns, he wanted a settled home. He had the money, he had his health and strength, now all he needed was to find a suitable property and a suitable lassie to wed. The land would be easy enough; (he heard quite soon of good tracts up for the purchase in Port Phillip and Van Diemen’s Land), the lassie proved unexpectedly elusive. The young daughters of the settlers were dewy and unfinished, raw as unbaked dough and with no more flavour. If he took a wife she need not bore him rigid. Hector attended subscription balls in Sydney Town, but though he could dance reels and polkas with the best of them, he remained dissatisfied. The few ladies he found attractive were wed already or would have nothing to do with him, too many had brothers or fathers whom he had crossed or bettered in business. There were older women, spinsters on their last prayers, but Hector wanted a family, and--he was vain enough not to want a woman unsought by other men. Besides, he reasoned, for a woman to be single in a colony so short of eligible females argued some defect of form, face, health or temper and when acquiring livestock, land or a wife, it paid to take the very best quality one could afford. Most of his partners he found unsatisfactory. Some were silly, some were boring and some were so unnerved by his face and reputation that they eyed him as a rabbit eyes a stoat. When their hands met his in the dance, he found them unpleasantly soft, perspiration-damp or brittle as bundles of bone. His own hands, scarred and toughened as seasoned timber, quite swallowed those of his reluctant partners, and he found himself opposed to the notion of proposing marriage to any of them.

It was a chance remark made by a brewer with whom he had some business that made Hector change his plans. There seemed no suitable women in Sydney Town, and he had made too many enemies to settle comfortably there. The year had been uncommonly dry, and drought threatened, so it seemed sensible to move on. He toyed with the notion of emigrating to New Zealand, but he had little knowledge of that colony. There was always the Port Philip district, but that was surely over-run by settlers by now. Instead, he decided to take up land in the island colony of Van Diemen’s Land, some six or seven hundred miles to the south. He rather wished he had thought of it before, when there were still land grants to be had, but he was never one to repine over things than could not be helped. He looked forward to a cooler, damper climate, where he could make his choice, develop a property, build a home at his leisure, and look about him for a suitable woman. There was little time to waste, so, late in 1837, Hector set about realising his assets. With the drought, his land brought less than he had hoped, but as he had interests in the brewing trade and several others, he called in some mortgages and emerged from this voluntary liquidating as a tolerably rich man. He secured property in the north of Van Diemen’s Land, then, his portable possessions whittled down to a single set of clothes, a dirk, a double barrelled gun, a pistol, a cut-throat razor and a money pouch, he headed to the harbour to arrange his passage to take it up. At the same time, he intended to inspect the latest cargoes brought in from Britain. If anything appealed, he might well buy up goods on the docks and outfit a vessel of his own instead of buying a passage. The goods could be traded in Launceston and with luck might turn a moderate profit.

Scowling with thought, Hector tramped the wharf in his heavy boots, forging through the crowd as thoughtlessly as a Clydesdale might forge through a field of corn. He never shouldered folk aside; they fell back with automatic courtesy as he passed. Not only did he dwarf them, but the swirl of his distinctive clothing made him look even larger. He no longer wore the plaid he had brought from Scotland; that one had disintegrated long ago, but Hector, with typical determination, had managed to secure another of similar pattern. The local weaver had been stupefied at his demand for a Campbell tartan, but equal measures of bullying and money had brought about the desired result. The cloth was not of the same quality, but it was the best that could be had until he could arrange the delivery of another from Scotland. Better yet, he would invest in some good wool sheep and have another created from his own fleece.

An immigrant ship was in--the May Queen out of London. Assisted immigrants, he thought with a snort; folk whose passage had been funded so that they could come to take up work in New South Wales. To be sure the labour shortage was much discussed in the colony, but he had never had trouble finding servants--or disposing of them either, if they proved unsuitable. The response to the immigrant scheme had been less than the government had hoped; apparently few had the courage and vision to leave an old country and chance their arms in a new. He paused with faint unconscious scorn as this new batch of Sassenachs came shambling down the gangplank. Innocent as new-hatched pigeons, he thought, aye ripe for plucking by any shrewd enough to make the effort. But he was not in the position to pluck them himself. He had other matters to settle. On the verge of passing by, Hector sniffed the air. Above the usual stench of fish, salt and unwashed flesh, he detected another odour, warm and pungent and familiar. Swine. The ship was carrying swine, and these, if healthy and well conditioned, might perhaps serve as his new venture in Van Diemen’s Land. Swine and sheep might share a property, and bacon bring in profit while the flock built up by natural means. Hector looked for the person in charge of the pigs, then, realising the livestock would not be unloaded until the passengers had disembarked, he leaned against a bollard to wait.

Idly, he watched women descend. Some were alone, others greeted husbands, some stoically, some with ill-concealed dismay, and a few with a light in their faces which transfigured plain features and made Hector blink with sudden envy. He wanted that for himself. Not complaisance or tolerance, such as he saw on the faces of squatters’ wives, but this transfiguration, this warmth and ... Och, get awa’! he thought impatiently. A sensible body of good breeding who would do as she was bid and produce healthy bairns.

Hector’s thoughts broke off, for his gaze, in sweeping the passengers awaiting their turn to disembark, had touched on something familiar. It could not be a face; these settlers were strangers to him, and he had left Scotland before many of them were born. Scowling with surprise, Hector raked the crowded decks again. And again, patiently, until he saw her.

A small, straight figure wrapped in a plaid. He could not see her face, for she was wearing a deep-crowned bonnet. The oval brim should have permitted a view of her features, but she seemed to be staring rigidly down at the rough surface of the dock. The bonnet was untrimmed, and the ribbons which fastened it disappeared into the folds of the plaid. Hector’s eyes burned as he strained to bring the figure into focus. Repeatedly, she was lost from view as others pushed past her. He had an impression of youth, but that was all. The plaid was not the green of the Campbells, but some earthy mixture of brown and yellow. Hector could not call the tartan’s origin to mind, but he hardly cared. It was enough that its wearer was so obviously a fellow Scot. No Englishwoman would wear such a garment.

The possibilities of pigs were forgotten. Hector left the bollard and stepped up to the flank of the ship. "Will you no be coming away down to me, lassie?" he called.

Ness remained at the rail, unwilling to take the final steps which would land her irrevocably in a strange country. Beneath the encompassing folds of the plaid, she clutched an old cloak bag containing all she had in the world. A spare sark, shawl and stockings, a calico apron, a dark woollen gown cut down from one of Phemie’s, a limp little bible, and a small money pouch, a brush and her grandmother’s brooch. Jean Leslie had had a trunk of clothes, and Ness knew she would not have grudged them, but the ship’s surgeon had been adamant; the belongings of the fever-dead must be tossed overboard in the wake of the shrouded bodies. He had not said why, and Ness suspected that a few items, including the sovereigns her patron had carried, had not followed her body into the depths. She was nearly sure she had seen Jean’s Sunday bonnet on the head of Miss Smithers ... and her so rich already!

There was some stramash down below on the dock. A great voice roaring out--doubtless the man was drink-taken. She was reminded of Alexander the boatman who had shamed her by baying under her window like a hound--until she had emptied the dishpan over his ears. After that, he had found that Loch Haven was left to Phemie and never bothered her again. Ness blinked. Why should Alexander come to mind now? Doubtfully, she looked down. Among the crowd she saw something that turned her knees to porridge--a Scotsman in the green plaid of the Campbells. He was quite old, forty or more, for his shaggy black hair was touched with grey. He had a bent, high-bridged nose and remarkable eyes that burned like the flints beneath heavy brows. He was standing foursquare, staring up at the ship, his arms lifted in welcome. Almost, she made a gesture to answer him, but she knew beyond doubt he could not be calling her. Donal was the only man who would give her such welcome, and Donal was a small, sandy man, unlike this inky-haired giant standing on the docks as unconcerned with the crowd as if they had been trout in the loch.

She looked about to see whom he was hailing, but there seemed no-one to answer.

"Lassie? Can you no come down?" The Scotsman’s voice was strong and resonant, but the accent was not like her own. The words were familiar, but the intonation was thicker, flatter, though it still fell with warmth on Ness’ ears. She had heard no Scots voice since Jean had sunk into her final stupor. And finally, as the bright gaze caught and held hers, she accepted that the incredible had happened. Someone was pleased to welcome her.

Ness took a deep breath, her despair lifting. Leaning over the rail she looked down at the Scotsman and called an answer; "Aye, Campbell, that I can."

He nodded, and she stood away from the rail and began to shuffle determinedly back into the queue. She lost sight of the Scotsman behind a plumed bonnet and several large bandboxes, and it took almost half an hour before she was able to make her way down the gangplank. Long enough for her to recover from the madness and reflect that, after all, the man was a stranger. Barring the fact that he had come from the same country and harboured the same outmoded affection for the plaid, she knew nothing. He could be laird or ghillie, cotter or dominie, shipwright or thief. He could be wed with a dozen bairns and a sonsy wife, or he could be a widower on the look-out for a nursemaid. She knew nothing--but yes she did; she knew his name. As sure as her name was McCleod, his should be Campbell. The colour and pattern of a tartan was by no means a definite identification, many Scotsmen could and did wear a mix of such tartans as pleased them, but for a man of his stature to wear a single garment of this nature, oh, his name must be Campbell, and it could do no harm to ask him advice as she would have asked it of the minister or the dominie back home.

As she hastened down the gangplank, Ness glanced at the place where the man had stood. It was empty, and she felt a pang of disappointment. He had not waited, after all.

Tears flooded, and she tottered blindly for the last few steps and, for the first time in many months, set her foot on solid ground. It pitched sickeningly under her feet and Ness, whose stomach had remained staunch through the worst the ocean had to offer, felt ill. She gulped and swayed, catching a waft of ammonia as the pigs were brought up out of the hold. She coughed, perspiration standing on her forehead and upper lip. The heat beat up from the docks and the smell of pigs was unbearable. She swayed again, and a hand the size of a griddle touched her shoulder in support, a curiously tentative touch. "Lassie? Are you ill?"

"No’ ill," gasped Ness. "Just ..." She took another step away from the gangplank and again the ground heaved alarmingly. She thought she might faint, but that was ridiculous. Healthy Scotswomen did not faint. That was for the English in their over-tight whalebones and stays. She looked up to assure the Campbell that she was perfectly well, but he seemed to have decided otherwise, for he picked her up as if she had been a bairn or a stricken ewe and carried her away back from the ship, plaid, cloak bag and all.

Hector was aware of an odd feeling of satisfaction as he bore the lassie away. Just what a Scotswoman was doing arriving unescorted in a strange country bothered him little. He accepted her fortuitous arrival just as he had accepted other lucky incidents in his life. He had been wanting just such a woman and she had arrived; and so, for the present, that was enough for him. It occurred to him fleetingly that she might be the property of someone else, but unless she was married, he would soon persuade any other fellow to relinquish his claims. Threats or gold, he would use whatever it took, but perhaps it would be as well to know what was in store. Accordingly, he stopped short some distance from the ship-side and looked at his prize. "Is someone meeting you, lassie?"

"No," she said faintly. "My--my friend is dead. The pigs had a fever and some of the passengers had it as well."

"Then I’ll no be buying them," said Hector.

"No," she agreed with the ghost of a smile. "I doubt you will."

"A bad risk, with some o’ them sickly, and with a fever that passes to folk."

"Aye."

There was a dray standing nearby, the nag half asleep with its hind hoof resting on its tip and its lower lip hanging open like a wallet. Hector set his burden down on the tail-board and looked down appraisingly. "Take off the plaid, lassie," he ordered.

She looked a little askance, but unwrapped it from her shoulders to reveal a light-coloured gown, well-worn and stained with salt. The cloak bag she was still clutching showed rubbed patches and the corners were threadbare. Her cloth boots had been mended and the bonnet, as he had noted while she was still on the ship, was unfashionably plain.

"You have no man o’ your own, lassie?" he asked.

"I have not," she said.

She was not a beauty, but well enough formed. She had a neat little figure now it was freed from the enveloping plaid, her face was heart-shaped with an appealingly wide brow and a milky, lightly freckled skin so pale he could see the blue veins in her temples. She had straight brows and a fine nose and cool grey eyes. He could see little of her hair under the bonnet, but it appeared to be a light brown, tending a little to red. Her mouth was firm in repose, but it might be generous if she smiled.

"Your father hasna come with you?" he said abruptly.

"My father is dead," she answered. "This is his plaid. His--his wife had no need o’ it--she’s taken up wi’ Lachie Douglas."

Hector nodded, well pleased. "It would be as well if we take a ship to Van Diemen’s Land, the day," he said. "You’ll like it fine, there--no so many people." He waved his hand at the crowded docks, then sat beside her on the dray. The wheels creaked, the shafts dipped and the nag turned and yawned, showing orange-pink gums and long yellow teeth. "We’ll build a house on a brae," added Hector. "A braw house o’ stone."

The lass was watching him doubtfully. She looked better now, there was a faint flush of colour in her cheeks which Hector noted with approval. He had no wish for a peelie-wally wife. "Can you cook?" he enquired.

A doubtful cough made him turn about to frown at one of the Sassenach soldiers who cluttered up the colony. This one was enquiring officiously about the ownership of the dray. Whether he objected to its presence here or whether he suspected Hector of larcenous intentions was beside the point. A man ought not to be interrupted when settling on a wife.

"It isna my vehicle," snapped Hector irritably. "I’d be shamed to own it--or the nag."

"Have you the permission of the owner to occupy said vehicle?" pursued the soldier.

"Please," broke in the girl, "I was feeling a little faint, sir and this gentleman set me here to rest a wee while. I am better now, we shall move on."

The soldier hesitated, then nodded curtly. "See you do," he said, and stood watching until the girl slid down from the dray.

Hector was forced to rise also, for she was still unsteady on her feet, and it was poor manners to sit while a lassie stood. "What ships are set for Van Diemen’s Land?" he asked.

"The Lithgow is to sail this afternoon," said the soldier, holding his ground.

Hector nodded. "We take passage on that." He dismissed the soldier from his mind and the man, as folk often did when dismissed by Hector Campbell, found himself recalling urgent business at the other end of the docks.

"What if they ha’ no room?" ventured the girl.

"They’ll ha’ room for me lassie, and for you if I gi’e the word."

"And--and why should I come wi’ you?"

Hector was taken aback. Somehow, he’d thought it all settled. If she hesitated now, there were plenty of settlers who would take her in; non-convict labour was very short and there was a push to prevent the assignation of convicts to private parties. "We’ll be wed when we get there," he assured her.

"Oh." The girl laughed, a little hysterically. "Shall we indeed, Campbell?"

"Unless you’ve other plans?"

"No," she admitted. "I havena but..."

"But what?" asked Hector, frowningly.

The girl shrugged, and handed him the cloak bag. "My name is Agnes McCleod," she said, dropping a small, unsteady curtsy and holding out her hand.

"Hector Campbell." He shook the hand gingerly. It was small, but not, he was glad to note, overly soft or brittle. He had a slight sense of anti-climax, as if some momentous decision had been taken too lightly, but Agnes McCleod was regarding him with wide grey eyes. She was very young, he thought, perhaps no more than seventeen. "It pleases you to wed me?" he asked with pretended diffidence.

She laughed a little bitterly. "I ken nothing else to do. Thank you for the offer, Hector Campbell, for I ha’ little more than a bawbee to my name."