So on this afternoon, when Barbara’s guest had but scarcely arrived and there suddenly came from the parlor a loud sound of breaking glass, Lily looked up from her work in surprise.

Being in the kitchen, Lily was already just outside the parlor. Near enough to be in Simon’s way as he pushed past her in a running blur, slammed the parlor door fair off its hinges, and dragged out a man by the knot of his cravat.

Lily had witnessed the boys’ fights, but those had been brief and had left few real bruises. She’d never seen anyone getting an actual beating.

The man, by the end of it, was on the floor and his cravat was no longer white but stained red from his bleeding as Simon’s fists landed relentlessly, blow after sickening blow.

Archie tried to pull Simon away and was elbowed back violently into the wall.

It was Barbara who finally took Simon’s face in her two hands and said, “Stop!” and he did, but the damage was done.

It brought trouble.

The man stayed two days in their parlor, stretched out on the bed. He was senseless at first. Archie sent for the doctor, who said they were fortunate. “He’ll keep that eye, once the swelling goes down, and he’s just now begun talking back to me, so I believe he’ll recover with rest, though I’d keep him well clear of your lad for a while, else you’ll lose that one, too.”

That evening at the table while they ate their supper there was silence.

Archie finished first, refilled his cup with ale, and looked at Barbara, who hadn’t been meeting his eyes. He said, “The man has a job to do, like any other man.”

“Not a good job,” she said. “Transporting people away from their homes and their families to be sold for ten years of slavery.”

“He only arranges the ships.”

“Doesn’t make his hands any the cleaner.” She looked at him then. “Ye ken what he did.”

“Aye. Ye still should have managed it differently. Because not only did I lose a bottle of wine in this business, but now he will want to be paid, and paid dearly, to keep Simon out of the Tolbooth, or worse. You may well hang your head, lad,” he added to Simon. “You’re going to cost me far more than I get from the church for your upkeep. And not just this once, but for years. I’d do better to just let ye swing.”

But his tone held no violence and Barbara looked over the table to tell Simon, “He doesn’t mean that. Not truly.”

“The devil I don’t,” Archie said.

* * *

“Family,” said the minister that Sabbath as he turned the hourglass to begin his sermon, “is God’s sacred gift to all of us, and one we must let never be divided.”

Archie coughed, and Barbara hushed him.

They went every Sabbath to the South Leith church. On rare occasions, if one of the lads was ill or someone needed tending in the way that Lily had the day she’d first arrived, Barbara would stay at home to care for them, but otherwise they all went as one family, for the church did not allow parishioners to miss the service without reason, and their searchers went each Sabbath through the streets to find those who defied the rules, so that they could be called to answer and repent, and pay their fines.