The crowd parted and he climbed the path to the cottage. The little building had been baking in the heat of the last two days and Caleb opened the doors and windows to try to let some cooler air waft through. He set his bag and the basket containing his supper on the table and looked around the untidy room. Battered old medical books covered in dust and ash were piled higgledy-piggledy on the mantelpiece. Caleb picked each one up and set it to rights, finding several notebooks written in Bowen’s neat hand at the bottom of the pile.

He flicked through them and his pulse quickened. They contained the doctor’s observations on medical conditions he had encountered since his arrival in Australia fifteen years earlier and were far more use to Caleb than the stuffy, outdated volumes. He placed the notebooks onto the armchair and turned to the basket of food. Apart from the pie, he found a bottle of ginger beer and a slab of cake.

After he had eaten, Caleb went looking for Bowen’s stash of whiskey, finding several bottles hidden under the doctor’s bed. He sat in the battered armchair beside the unlit fireplace, a glass in his hand, and began to read Bowen’s notes. If he was now a registered medical practitioner, he owed it to the people of Maiden’s Creek to be the best he could be and he had a great deal of catching up to do.

Engrossed in a description on the treatment for snake bite, a timorous rapping on the door made him start.

And so it begins, he thought, as he set the book aside and rose to answer the door.

For a long moment he thought he must have been imagining the knock as he held up the lantern and peered into the empty darkness.

‘Who’s there?’

A slight woman in a gown several sizes too big for her came forward into the light thrown by the lantern, her head lowered, her arms wrapped around her.

‘Are you looking for the doctor?’ Caleb asked.

The woman raised her head and Caleb recognised the pockmarked face.

‘Posy?’

The girl’s lips trembled and she nodded. ‘I heard you was back and I was wondering if you could spare me a penny or two?’ The woman’s voice shook. ‘I’ve had nothing to eat since yesterday and I’m awful hungry.’

Caleb stood aside. ‘Come in, girl. I’ve some pie left over from my supper you can have.’

She shook her head. ‘I can’t—’

‘Yes, you can, but if you want tea you’ll have to make it yourself.’

Posy stepped into the little parlour and stood looking around her as Caleb set the leftover pie on the only clean plate he could find.

‘There you go. Eat up.’