‘And because of my size, I could get into crevices they couldn’t. I’ll be helpful to you, I promise. You’ll vouch for me, won’t you, friends?’ She looked at the faces she had known all her days: Archie MacQueen, Flora’s father; Callum McKinnon, the middle of Mhairi’s brothers and always the most reasonable; even Norman Ferguson. They had prayed beside her in kirk or sat beside her in the schoolroom, they had cragged and hunted and wrung necks together; but the weather-worn, sunburnt faces she had known all her life were turned now to the ground. They were honourable men, brave and stoic, but to her amazement, what she saw on them now was fear – and shame of their fear. They could not defend her when they had no power here. They were no longer the masters of their fate, as they had been back home. A cash wage, and the easy survival it bought, came at a cost to dignity.

A silence grew as no one stepped forward, no one spoke out and she felt her stomach lurch as their silence – betrayal – solidified into something firm. Denial.

‘Things are different here, lass,’ the foreman said as her cheeks grew red. ‘What may have been acceptable – necessary even – over on the islands, can’t be done here.’

‘Why not?’ Was she to be the only one even to question it?

‘Let’s just say there’s an etiquette to how things are done.’

Effie stared at him blankly. She’d never heard this word ‘etiquette’ before. It meant nothing. ‘If you could just give me a chance to prove myself—’

‘But even if you did, it wouldn’t make a difference. I can’t have a slip of a thing like you working here. We’d be a laughing stock. This is men’s work.’

Effie felt her breathing become shallow as the full hopelessness of what he was saying dawned. She was wholly condemned by virtue of her sex?

‘How about we settle it over an arm-wrestle?’ Angus McKinnon suggested, cruel mockery in his voice.

‘That won’t be necessary,’ the foreman said coolly. ‘Miss Gillies understands the situation, don’t you, lass?’

For a moment she said nothing. She cast her gaze around the room and the men – most of them – had the decency to look away, ashamed of having denied her the chance to prove herself, when they knew full well that whatever they could do . . .

‘Aye, sir,’ she said bitterly.

‘Mrs Buchanan will be waiting on you. You’d best hurry along now, she’ll be thinking you’re late and she’s a stickler for good timekeeping.’ He looked at her clothes again. At her wet foot and the mud tideline up to her knee. ‘I expect she’ll have a change of clothes you can wear too.’

‘That won’t be necessary.’

‘On the contrary, I think you’ll find she’ll insist upon it.’