‘The mist is lucky for us,’ I told Terry when our final load was carried to the head of the loch. ‘If you go and make a fire beside the cave I’ll fetch up as much as I can before the mist rises.’ She preferred to help me so that we could rest without worrying because all our belongings were not in safety. The fortunate clouds kept low until ten o’clock, enabling us to complete our task. At length we could see an end to our flight. I huddled over the fire, wrapped in blankets, while Terry spread out my wet clothes to dry. She commenced to hunt through the bundles on the floor.

‘Rest, Terry,’ I besought her.

‘We must have food,’ she returned, and gave me the kettle. I filled it with a cup at the pool beside our cave which was fed by trickles of water down the rock face. Terry put fat in the frying-pan; she fried a piece of steak, with onions, and two eggs, and a slice of bread. So we ate our first meal in the cave. When it was done I scattered the fire. We rolled ourselves in blankets and fell asleep on the ground.

It was a heavy yet troubled sleep I enjoyed, with many dreams of which vivid fragments persisted into my waking mind. We wakened at the same time, in the mid-afternoon. I turned to find Terry watching me with a bewildered childish expression on her face.

‘What is it, Terry?’ I asked.

‘I had a dream—’ she began, and hid her face in her hands for a moment. When she took them away the baffled look had gone from her eyes. They were content. I went out carefully to our pool. She washed herself in the basin of water I brought, and brushed her hair, talking the while of what we must do. We made a tally of our goods, piling them as neatly as possible against the inner wall of the cave so that we could move freely.

‘How long it seems since yesterday,’ Terry remarked as we worked.

‘You got a good few things,’ I returned.

‘Yes, at a price. I had to beg for everything. I went as far as Inverness. And oh, I worried about you!’

‘Poor lassie,’ I murmured.

‘Then Duncan came. I dared not let him into the house. He would have known something was wrong if he saw it. He’s been called up. He kept on asking where you were. Of course he saw the car at the door. I’m sure he thought you were poaching.’

These were the things we brought with us.