‘I think,’ offers the third sheriff, ‘that this is a matter for us to debate in private.’

This is as much as I could have hoped for. A reconsideration.

‘And in the meantime, what will become of me?’ I ask. ‘Might I go back to my home in Fisherrow? I will be safe there and looked after too. My family is waiting outside on my news.’

‘You will remain here in Edinburgh,’ says Sheriff McAllister. ‘For the likelihood is that you will be hanged again before the week is out.’

They all nod then and call for me to be taken from their courtroom, and I imagine they will head straight back to the White Hart Inn to debate the matter in earnest, supplemented with even more victuals to calm their agitated nerves.

I am led back to the Tolbooth Jail by two bullish constables, and I start to dread what awaits beyond the gates. The prison is only a short walk from the court, back across Parliament Square, but it is a walk from the civilized world to a dangerous one, for the Tolbooth has its own codes and rules. Ma, Da, Joan and the McIvors are standing by the cart and, when they see me come out, Ma, Da and Joan rush over.

‘Wait,’ says Ma, ‘don’t just hurl her back in there. What did they say, Maggie?’

The constables stop, but I know they won’t give us long.

‘They’re still deciding what to do. I don’t know how long that will take.’

Da shakes his head. ‘I need to get back out on the boat,’ he says. ‘Or there’ll be no fish for us to sell.’

Ma looks fit to collapse at it all and I feel a stab of guilt.

Joan looks away from me and fiddles with her bonnet ribbons. The constables start walking me towards the jail door.

‘We’ll try to visit,’ offers Ma. But she says it weakly.

And that is how we say our goodbyes, with the same embarrassment and shame as we felt when we had our last visit before I was hanged.

If I have been a terrible disappointment to my family, they have been a disappointment to me. If I feel guilt at what I have put us all through, then surely they must feel guilt too?

But I can’t think of that now. It is too much. I have to steel myself for prison life again.

The constables bundle me back inside and push me up narrow stairs and through low-ceilinged passageways, then finally they hand me over to the turnkey in charge of the women’s cell.

‘You will recognize this woman,’ one of the constables says. ‘Survived the hanging this morning. Keep a close eye on her.’