Netta’s presence brought out a bad side in Peg. The young woman fair turned over her stomach, like a dose of Epsom salts. Peg’s exertions went unrewarded for there was no one in the loft to greet her. She peered from the dusty gable window to watch Gus and the dogs chasing a ball and Netta trying to take a snap of them all. One more day and she would be out of their hair until Hogmanay. Twice a year: that was the unspoken agreement. Peg reckoned it had worked out for the best over the years.

She noticed the open leather case and the boxes, the clutter of years. What a sort out this place needed! One of these springs she would come up here and give the corners a fright, make a good bonfire of all this rubbish. Her eye fell on a tent-shaped object covered with an old sheet. Peg picked her way gingerly over to see what was underneath.

The black oak carved cradle rocked gently at her touch. This was an heirloom for Gus whose own children might one day be soothed by its gentle rocking. She could recall every detail of the time when it was brought down and polished up proudly for their own use: a day Peg had never believed would come. She smiled to herself. How merciful were the ways of the Lord…

Park Royal, Spring 1945

Peg made the trek with the leather suitcase from Stratharvar to Park Royal Hospital by train into Dumfries and then bus, leaving Angus and the one remaining Land Army girl to see that baby’s bottles were made up to her instructions on the stove.

The bairn did not settle to this change of routine, fussing and screaming all night long. Peg could not believe a tiny baby could make such a din and turn the quiet regime of Brigg Farm upside down. All Leithy’s instructions went by the board. She found herself pacing the linoleum in the dead of night, clasping the red-faced nuisance to her chest, patting his back in desperation. He was searching for a teat so she shoved her pinkie in his mouth. He sucked furiously and hard but the moment the baby dozed off and she tried to put him down, his blue eyes would open suspiciously and he’d start bawling all over again. Round one to baby.

Peg began to wonder if this little mite knew that his life had changed forever. Trust Angus to toss and grunt but offer no help. Next morning, however, he climbed up into the loft and fetched out a dusty rocking cradle, black with age. Peg scrubbed it clean and polished it to glass, stuffed a mattress of towels and old sheeting inside and plonked his lordship in it in the middle of the stone-flagged kitchen by the mending basket. Every so often she kicked the rockers and the exhausted infant drifted off at last. Round two to Peg.