“It will be all right,” I said softly to her, and smoothed down her hair. “We’ll go to your mother at once. Where do you live?”

She gulped and wouldn’t look up, but was so cold she clung to me for warmth.

“I don’t know. I m-mean—I don’t know how to say. Just—if you can come with me, I can take you back?” She wasn’t Scottish.

I looked at Jamie for information—I’d not heard of the Cloudtrees; they must be recent settlers—but he shook his head, one brow raised. He didn’t know them, either.

“Did ye come afoot, lassie?” he asked, and when she nodded, asked, “Was the sun still up when ye left your home?”

She shook her head. “No, sir. ’Twas well dark, we’d all gone to bed. Then my mother’s pains came on sudden, and …” She gulped again, tears welling in her eyes.

“And the moon?” Jamie asked, as though nothing were amiss. “Was it up when ye set out?”

His matter-of-fact tone eased her a little, and she took an audible breath, swallowed, and nodded.

“Well up, sir. Two handbreadths above the edge of the earth.”

“What a very poetic turn of phrase,” I said, smiling at her. Fanny had come with my old gardening shawl—it was ratty and had holes, but had been made of thick new wool to start with. I took it from Fanny with a nod of thanks and wrapped it round the girl’s shoulders.

Jamie had stepped out onto the porch, presumably to see where the moon now was. He stepped back in and nodded to me.

“The brave wee lass has been abroad in the night alone for about three hours, Sassenach. Miss Agnes—is there a decent trail that leads to your father’s place?”

Her soft brow scrunched in concern—she wasn’t sure what “decent” might mean in this context—but she nodded uncertainly.

“There’s a trail,” she said, looking from Jamie to me in hopes that this might be enough.

“Take Clarence,” he said to me, over her head. “The moon’s bright enough. I’ll go with ye.” And I think we’d best hurry, his expression added. I rather thought he was right.

CLARENCE WAS NOT enthused at being rousted from his sleep, nor about carrying two people, even if one was a starveling girl. He kept huffing and snorting irascibly, walking slowly and blowing out his sides every time I tried to nudge him into speed with my heels. Jamie had taken Fanny’s enormous mare, Miranda, she being of a stolid, amiable temperament and stout enough to bear his weight. She wasn’t all that pleased by the nocturnal expedition, either, but plodded obligingly through the groves of aspen and larch, poplar and fir, up the steep, narrow trail that led toward the top of the Ridge.