‘Well, now it’s gone – back with Spencer, where it belongs – and we have more important things to worry about than packages,’ said Ma. ‘For these lines are not even half finished yet. Maggie, you’ll need to get on to them soon as you can, for if they are unfinished, it will be the workhouse at Eskmills for the lot of us.’

However, I had more important things to worry about than fishing lines. So off I trotted on my usual errand of buying the day’s groceries at the market on the harbour. But instead of dawdling and gawping at the milliner’s stall and the draper’s stand, I dawdled at the Mussel Inn. I made sure to do this before I bought my groceries, for there would have been nothing less alluring that me hanging around with a turnip and a cabbage in my creel.

The Mussel Inn was a big, bustling building on the waterfront where travelling folk would spend the night, and where most of the business of the burgh was conducted. The fishermen, like Da, drank in the back bar, and strangers were not welcomed there. The building had an open courtyard in the middle, with two storeys of galleries around it, with rooms off them, including a big assembly room and a couple of parlours, and smaller meeting rooms and the like. It also had a stable and storage sheds, and even an adjoining bakery and a general-goods store and a barber shop, so there was always a toing and froing of folk.

I decided to linger around the general-goods store, which sold a miscellany of pots and pans and pegs and cheap prints, pamphlets and ballads. I must say at this point I did not know exactly what I wanted to happen, should I bump into Spencer. All I knew was that I was feeling the sense of something new and different. I suppose, if there was a word for it, that word would be ‘possibility’.

Mibbie Spencer sensed me too, for I was only in the general store five minutes when he sauntered through the door, whistling a jaunty song, which I now know to be a bawdy one about a lusty lady and a tradesman. I stiffened, a cake of Castile soap in my hand. He raised his eyebrows when he saw me and tipped his hat, giving a small bow.

‘Well, aren’t you a welcome sight this morning, Maggie Dickson?’ he said. ‘But I’ve had a sleepless night, sharing a room with a sailor who has not washed in a month, and I could do with a cup of strong coffee. What say you join me?’