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“Granna? Yes, I suppose so. I’ve never been able to decide whether those two like each other or not.” Stuart laughed. “But then I suppose no man ever does know that kind of thing between women, especially two different generations.”

Judith was not in the mood to continue the argument with him. “I must go back and get the tea ready. My job on Sundays, usually.” As an afterthought, she added, “Will you join us?”

Her own chilliness reacted on him. There was a pause before he answered, “No, thanks. I’ll go home.” He untied his boat from the slipway and started the motor.

She waved to him and walked up the path towards Barbara’s. The December afternoon twilight had misled her, for the kitchen clock pointed to only a quarter past three when she arrived. A dispirited smile played round her mouth. Hurrying home to get the tea! If Stuart had accepted that excuse as a curt dismissal, she had only herself to blame.

On the following Tuesday, she boarded the afternoon mail steamer for Tobermory. Dalkeith’s had arranged for her to stay two nights at a small hotel on the promenade and given her an itinerary of visits and introductions.

The steamer zigzagged up the Sound of Mull, calling alternately at villages on the mainland or the island, unloading stores and taking further supplies aboard.

In Tobermory, Judith called first at the hotel and checked in, then visited the knitting factory, where a batch of samples had been prepared for her.

“I’ll look at the colours in daylight tomorrow,” she promised, “and come in again.”

Next day she called at the other addresses. Mr. Cameron of Dalkeith’s had instructed her to hire a car and local driver for the day from a garage. “You’ll find few buses at this time of year,” he explained, “and some of the weavers are far from main roads.”

Judith thought his words were probably the understatement of the year, for there were rocky paths and slopes that even the tough old Austin could not negotiate. But each journey was worth the trouble, for tucked away in isolated cottages, weavers, both men and women, produced exquisite cloth of all textures, heavy and fine. Soft pastels and bright jewel colours alike came from natural dyes that would not easily fade.

Judith took a large package of samples of their weaving and returned to her hotel.

At dinner, several other tables were occupied by business men or elderly couples, and she had almost finished her meal when she saw Neil enter the room.

He came straight towards her. “Well, this is a surprise!” he greeted her with \hat false heartiness which betrayed the fact that he had known he would find her there. “Yes. I didn’t know you were here.”

The waiter hovered near by and Neil asked, “May I join you? He sat down before Judith could answer.

“Are you going back tomorrow?” he asked.

She nodded, aware of a curious sense of approaching disaster. Yet what catastrophe could possibly happen merely because Neil stayed at the same hotel and might be travelling back to Cruban tomorrow on the same steamer? “How did you know I was here?” she asked.

“I didn’t, until I saw your name in the hotel register. I came here today to sell some of my sheep.”

“But it’s the wrong time of year for sheep sales,” she commented, and laughed at the way his eyebrows rose.

“Since when have you become so knowledgeable?”

“Andy talks to me quite a lot about the breeds. Besides, if I want to know about wool, I ought to learn about the sheep’s back where the stuff comes from.”

“I’ve sold some of the Cheviots,” he told her.

“Why did you bring them all the way here? Wouldn’t Andy or Mr. McKinnon have bought them and saved you the trouble of shipping?”

He grinned. “No use unloading them on Andy, so I gather, and I bought most of the original Cheviots from McKinnon. He wasn’t offering much of a price to buy them back.”

Judith remained silent, for it was obvious that Neil had his reasons for selling, but by the time he paid the freight charges, he would not be much more in pocket than if he had accepted McKinnon’s low prices.

“I’ll leave you to eat in peace,” she said, after a few moments. “I have some notes to make for Dalkeith’s and I’d like to get them down before I forget the details.”

“Don’t go,” he pleaded. “Stay and talk to me. I haven’t seen you for ages.”

So she sat with him after dinner in the small lounge for some time, but then she left him and went to her room.

He had told her that he was going back to Cruban on the nine o’clock steamer, but she had seen from the timetable in the hotel hall that there was an earlier one at a quarter to eight. With luck, she might escape travelling with him.

Since the night of the Highland Ball, she had seen Neil only a few times and had avoided being alone with him. She reflected that it was really ludicrous to regard travelling on the same steamer as being alone with him, but she had long ago discovered that one, and sometimes two, could be isolated in a crowd.

There was no sign of Neil when she left the hotel and walked across to the pierhead. The steamer was there, but the gangway was blocked.

“You will be taking the nine o’clock, I am thinking,” a pier official told her.

“Isn’t there an earlier one?”

“No. We have trouble with the engines.”

The morning was misty and
^!
quite dark. Car headlamps flashed and swerved and men’s voices called out and answered.

There was no sense in hanging about and getting chilled, she thought, so she returned to the hotel. Neil stood in the entrance hall.

“Much too early for the nine o’clock boat,” he remarked.

She could hardly deny her intention of taking an earlier one.

“I fear you’ll have to put up with my company, but I’ll do my best not to annoy you,” he sneered. “I wonder if you’d have been so eager to escape travelling with Huntly.”

Her best defence was not to answer at all. In any case, Neil could hardly make a scene in this part of the hotel.

She sat down at the table, peeled off her gloves and began to make more notes, It was only pretence, but she hoped Neil would not pester her. The idea of the early boat had been a mistake, but she could not have known there would be this delay.

The fog became thicker and there was talk at the porter’s desk that the expected steamer would be delayed. Even at ten o’clock it had not yet arrived from Coll. Neil came and sat down beside her. “I’ve ordered you some coffee,” he said in a more friendly tone. “You had your breakfast early.”

“Thank you, Neil.”

“Sorry I blew up at you like that. Must have had a sore head.”

It was nearly midday before the steamer left Tobermory. Although some of the fog had lifted, there were dense patches along the Sound and the land on either side was frequently blotted out. As the earlier steamer had not sailed, calls had to be made at villages on the island and the mainland, thus increasing the delay.

Judith, tired of sitting in the saloon, after lunch went on deck, where fog swirled in great clouds. She thought it was like being enveloped with a tangle of damp, chilling chiffon. Sheep in the railed-off enclosure amidships bleated continuously, competing with the ship’s fog-siren.

She wished Stuart were here on this slow, nerve-racking journey. Even though very soon their ways would part and in the end he would marry Fiona, his presence here now would have warmed her. Neil had kept his promise not to pester her on the steamer journey and was spending most of the time in the ship’s bar.

She was glad to return to the saloon and huddle in a corner, where she sat half dozing with a magazine in her lap. Suddenly a violent jolt shot her on to the floor; as she struggled to her feet, she saw that other passengers had also been thrown down.

“What on earth’s happened?” voices asked.

“We’ve struck something!” one man exclaimed.

“It’s a collision!” shouted another.

Overhead on deck there was the sound of thumps and footsteps, voices and shouts mingling with the ringing from the ship’s telegraph.

Several passengers rushed to the companion-way and were almost immediately met by a ship’s officer.

“There’s no danger at all. Sorry you’ve been thrown about, but please keep calm. The ship will proceed on her course.”

Passengers babbled questions at him, but he gave only vague, reassuring answers. Judith could see nothing at all through the portholes. The ship might have been sailing through the clouds for all the evidence that she was on water.

Neil came down into the saloon as soon as the officer left. “Are you all right, Judith?” he asked with concern.

“Oh, I just tumbled about on the floor, that’s all.”

She noticed blood on his cheek from a cut. “The barman’s bottles and glasses crashed all over the place,” he explained, wiping his face.

Then it became obvious that the ship’s engines had stopped.

“Stay here,” Neil commanded. “I’m going up to see what’s happened.” He returned a few moments later. “Put your coat on and bring all your belongings with you on deck. They think we may have struck a rock.”

On deck, most of the passengers were walking about asking each other for news. Eventually, it was established officially that the mail steamer had tried to avoid a collision with a trawler suddenly appearing out of the fog and, in turning, had scraped her hull on a submerged rock.

“Sinking, d’you think?” Judith queried.

“Oh, no,” Neil replied quickly. “We’ve not far from land, anyway.”

Uniformed officers and seamen began to shepherd the passengers into small groups near the lifeboats. Fortunately, thought Judith, there were comparatively few passengers at this time of year, so the lifeboats ought to be adequate, and there could hardly be a rough sea and dense fog at the same time in the comparatively sheltered Sound.

She tried not to feel frightened, but there was an unmistakable tilt to the deck. The ship was already listing to port and towards the bows.

The worst moment came when it was her turn to step into the lifeboat. She remembered accounts of disasters, when boats had tilted and flung out the occupants, of boats being dashed against the ship’s side or sucked under at the moment of sinking.

Yet the adventure proved no more dangerous than being ferried to one of the islands, for embarking in the lifeboats could be managed in a calm sea on the lower deck level.

On the mainland, she was lifted out of the boat and carried ashore by a burly seaman. “Ye’re safe and sound now, lassie,” he crooned to her.

In due course, Neil joined her on the sloping beach where the passengers were clustered in an anxious and arguing group.

“Thank goodness we’re on the mainland,” Judith said, “instead of being marooned on one of the islands.”

Neil gave her a slightly derisive glance. “You don’t realise, then, that we have a roundabout journey before us. We’re on Morven peninsula and the only roads go through the valleys. We shall have to go right up to the head of the loch, then cross two ferries before we’re even on the Cruban side. Much water lies between us and home.”

“Perhaps they’ll send out another steamer from Cruban to pick us up when they know about the accident,” she said hopefully.

It was nearly dark and the fog became less dense. Suddenly there was further excitement as sheep came swimming ashore. Men tried to herd the wet, dripping animals into a nucleus, so that others would follow.

Judith stared in horror. “But many of them will drown!” she exclaimed. “Their fleece is heavy.”

Neil shrugged. “The only thing to do is release them and throw them into the water. Some will swim in the wrong direction, of course, and get themselves drowned.” He laughed. “Glad they’re not mine.”

She looked up at his face, seeing the self-satisfaction at another owner’s discomfiture, the lack of compassion for either humans or animals, and the last tenuous link of her friendly feeling for Neil Raeburn was broken. She moved away from him in distaste, full of revulsion for this man who had tried to engulf her personality with the sheer force of his own self-seeking. Mairi was a fool to hanker after him, and Neil’s fiancée had shown herself a wise girl in breaking off the engagement.

Eventually, after a long delay, the passengers were taken to a village where they were given hot drinks. Then an ancient bus took them to Lochaline. A ship’s officer instructed them to wait patiently and another steamer would come from Cruban to fetch them, unless anyone wanted to continue his journey by road.

“We could do that if you like,” Neil suggested. “I could probably hire a car of some sort.”

“No, I’ll go on the ship,” she replied with tactless haste. “Afraid the car might break down and you’d be stranded with me? I wonder if you’d say the same to Huntly.” Judith faced him. “Didn’t you say there were two car ferries between here and Cruban? By the time we arrive, they will have stopped. It’s hardly sensible, is it? I’ll wait for the steamer.”

A fresh breeze sprang up, and the fog cleared so that it was possible to see twinkling lights on other shores.

At Cruban, there was quite a crowd of people to greet the returned passengers; among them, a reporter from the local paper and a photographer were busy taking details and pictures.

“Miss Whitacre, I think?” the young man approached Judith. “Can you give us your story of the ordeal?”

Judith laughed. “Ordeal? Well, we didn’t strike an iceberg and we were not out in the middle of the Atlantic. Oh, it wasn’t really terrifying. Excuse me, I’ve been delayed a long time.”

“Hold it a moment!” the photographer called. Simultaneously with the flash, she felt somebody jostle her arm.

“Miss Whitacre and I were travelling companions.” Neil’s voice immediately beside her gave her a shock. She thought he had already gone ashore. “We were staying in Tobermory.”

She turned quickly towards him, anxious to deny the implied connection. He was smiling at her and instantly his face was illuminated by a second flash from the photographer.

This time she broke away with certainty. “I have a lot of work to do,” she muttered.

She hurried away from the pierhead and across the square towards Dalkeith’s. At no time in her life had she ever felt quite so angry. How dare Neil imply to the press that they had been together at Tobermory, even on business?