“You stupid bastard!” he yelled as he charged up the pitch, with caman raised, like Rob Roy leading the final charge against the Redcoats at the Battle of Killiecrankie. “You had at least a hundred square feet of fucking goal to shoot at, and you had to hit the fucking ball straight at me!”

It was now the turn of Pegasus to stand immobile, and if it had not been for the intervention of Josh who, just before the moment of contact, yelled out, “Dad, for goodness’ sakes, what the hell’s got into you?” Dan would have cleaved the man from head to foot with one blow.

Dan’s reputation was therefore further enhanced by being the first Seascape Camanachd Club player ever to be red-carded from the field of play. Not that he minded much. Josh took over the goalkeeping duties thereafter and, no doubt in part due to the presence of Maria José on the touchline, performed for the rest of the game with the alacrity of a scalded cat.

21

Dan’s heart sank the moment he woke up on the morning that the girls’ train was due to pull into Fort William Station. He had become quite accustomed to lying in bed for those few precious seconds after his alarm had gone off, listening to the wind lightly blowing on the start of yet another sun-filled day. However, on this occasion, it whistled through the gap in his open window and splattered rain off the tin roof like the incessant roll of a snare drum, thus heralding the end of the long-running Indian summer.

He got out of bed and padded through to the main room, realizing as he went that the temperature in the house had dropped by about ten degrees. Having been lulled into a state of complacency by the continuance of the good weather, he had forgotten to bring in logs for the cooking stove the night before. He stuck his bare feet into a virgin pair of Wellington boots, chucked on a padded jacket, from which the price tag still hung, over his T-shirt and sports shorts, gave a short whistle to call the dogs from their bed, and ventured outside. He was back in the house no more than thirty seconds later. Having dumped the armful of logs into the wooden box by the stove, he began hopping from one foot to the other and beating his arms around his chest to get himself warm. The day was similar to the one when he had first arrived in Fort William five weeks ago, if not worse.