He set off, descending the hill at the kind of steady pace good infantry advanced at in the line. After Egypt the Highland regiments had become famous. When they paraded through London people leaned from their windows to see them pass, though there was some surprise at their not being larger men.

When the child saw Ranald she ran up the slope to meet him. She spoke with him, then looked past him to where Lacroix was still sitting by the trench. She waved; he waved back, delighted to be saluted by a child who did not need to wave to anyone, certainly not to him. And how intrigued she must be, Wee Annie, with Ranald’s hooks! She would remember them all her life, tell her children, her grandchildren. Say she was six or seven now (he knew he was not very good at guessing children’s ages) then she might, conceivably, live to see the year 1870! See a world he would not see. See what? Gas, steam ships. Electrical this and that. A sky full of air balloons. Balloons driven by steam? Why not? Sightseers would fly to the islands from London, drop anchor in a spot like this, swarm around with their sketch books, then up the ladder again and off to God knows. Iceland. Greenland. America? What if one day wee Annie emigrated in a balloon?

He was deep in this—the imagined departure for the New World by air balloon—when he heard himself addressed. He thought Cornelius must have woken but when he turned he saw it was Emily. She was wearing the solar glasses. She laughed self-consciously as he took her in.

“I look like an insect,” she said. “Do I?”

“No,” he said. “Not at all.”

“I don’t mind,” she said. “Jane takes care of beauty. I am here for other things.”

He nearly asked, what things? But corrected himself to say, “She does not have it all.”

He could not see her eyes clearly behind the glass, nor could he decide if she coloured a little or if it was just the sun on her cheeks, the heat. She looked down, took the glasses off and peered into the trench.

“Is that Cornelius?”

“It is. He is sleeping. The laudanum, I suppose. I hope I did right to give it to him.”

“I am glad you did,” she said. “It will help him until we go to Glasgow.”

He nodded at this. He was getting into the bad habit of pretending to have heard what he had not, but she guessed it and repeated herself.

“So you have settled on a time, then,” he said.