He hopped into the house, followed by his dog, and held the door open for her to go in. He was obviously pleased that she had accepted his invitation, but he was awkward now and a little shy. He showed her into a small dark room which could not have changed much since he was a child. Under the window was a square table covered with oil cloth. A black cast-iron stove jutted into the room from one wall. On shelves at either side of it were some religious books, an ugly wooden clock, an ornamental plate showing the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, and an assortment of glass animals. Two high-backed chairs made from driftwood in the island pattern stood by the stove, and in one corner was a spinning wheel. The room was tidy, but dusty. The window was dirty and allowed in little light. When Robert came in from the scullery after filling the kettle, she was still looking at the spinning wheel.

“That was my mother’s,” he said. “ She was a fine spinner. She kept the wool as even as can be and never broke the yam.”

He put the kettle on the stove. The dog, which lay on the black sheepskin hearth rug, did not look up.

“I make the best tea in Kinness,” he said proudly. “It’s the Tain water.”

She had to concentrate to understand him. He made no concession in his speech. She sat in one of the chairs. He took the other.

“It’ll take a while to boil,” he said. They looked at each other for a moment in silence, and then he began to talk.

“I was sorry about the lassie,” he said. “ It will have spoiled your wedding party.”

“I was sorry,” she said, “but not because of that.”

“Wasn’t it peculiar that it happened on the same day as the storm? And that she fell over Ellie’s Head?”

“The storm?”

That was all that it took for him to start the story. It was as if he had rehearsed what he had to say. It came out as a set piece—remembered by heart and recited when an audience could be found. Perhaps it was like that. Certainly he had told the story before—to American tourists and to a lady from the Baltasay museum who came with a tape recorder—but it seemed to Sarah that he specially wanted to tell it to her.