He was still trying to talk her round when Cornelius came out of his room. He had already taken some of the tincture, had swallowed it with his coffee immediately Lacroix had given him the bottle, and minutes afterwards had stripped off his clothes and gone to bathe in the water beyond the boathouse, talking incessantly—in and out of the water—and boasting that today he would simply bite his way through the earth and pick treasures like raspberry pips from between his teeth. Now, however, as the three men set off for the excavation, the drug shifted its mood and Cornelius walked in silence under the shade of a tasselled umbrella. On the hill he sat staring at the empty sea (the islanders would rather grow potatoes than catch fish), then climbed into the trench, stretched himself out on the earth and fell asleep. Ranald and Lacroix looked down at him. The likeness to a corpse in a grave was strong but neither man mentioned it.

“It may have been wiser not to have given it to him,” said Lacroix. He had told Ranald about the drug, had told him too how he came by it. Glasgow. Blue orange. The new police.

The two of them sat on the grass. The kilt had a nice way of settling around Ranald’s knees. Lacroix wondered if an Englishman might ever be allowed to wear one. He thought not. “May I ask,” he said, “if your hands ever hurt you now? Or your wrists, I mean. Of course.”

“It is ten years,” said Ranald. His hooks were crossed in his lap like cutlery. “In the winter the cold goes into the bone. But I am used to it now.”

“You were with General Abercrombie?”

“I was. And you with General Moore, I think.”

“Yes. Though we might have preferred Abercrombie.”

Ranald nodded. They sat in silence. They had compared their generals. Would they now compare regiments? If he asks me, thought Lacroix, I will tell him plainly. Regiment, squadron. I do not know this man but I trust him as I would trust him in a battle.

He waited but nothing came.

Below them the peat diggers were at their work again. Lacroix had learned the name of the spade they used—a troighsgear. He asked Ranald who the people were.

“It is Donald Mackinnon and his sons Donald and Duncan. And the woman is Peggy Mackinnon and the other man is Robert Flynn. The child is Wee Annie.”

The child moved in loops around the adults, small arms whirling. She had nothing on her head and the light shone off her black hair.

“I had better go down to help them,” said Ranald, getting to his feet. “If he wakes and wishes to start the work I can come up again.”