Chapter 15

Mrs M,

I fink something is wrong. Plese come.

― signed Jimmy.

24 th June 1850, Wick, Caithness, Scotland.

Hamilton pushed open the front door of his property to discover Malcolm Stewart still shouting up at the bedroom windows, calling Clara's name. The reverend had finally roused himself to action and was red in the face, shaking his fist at Malcolm and demanding he stop his slanderous comments. All to no avail. Hamilton's tactic was rather more brutal and certainly more effective. He walked up to Malcolm, grabbed him by his coat lapel, and punched him in the face.

Malcolm sprawled on the ground, the flaming torch knocked from his hand as blood flowed from his nose. He grinned up at Hamilton as his mouth filled with blood, giving him the look of a man who was not quite sane. Hamilton suspected he wasn't in that moment, for the drink was upon him and he'd seen reasonable men do and say terrible things when in their cups. Not for the first time, he wondered if perhaps the reverend had a point, and if perhaps he had been standing on the wrong side of the argument. Whilst he would never agree with banning whisky—the idea was a horrifying one—he could not deny it caused a good deal of desperation in the town.

"Mr Anderson!" Reverend Halliday exclaimed, staring down at Malcolm sprawled in the gutter.

"Aye, I ken it was nae very Christian of me," Hamilton said gruffly, very aware that he would need to ask this man for Clara's hand the next day. "But I cannae have the fellow slandering an innocent girl, for Clara is nae with me," he added, raising his voice for the benefit of the crowd.

"No, indeed!" the reverend said. "I meant only to thank you for doing what I could not."

Hamilton glanced around in surprise and nodded as he saw the reverend's gratitude writ large upon his face. "I'm afraid Mrs Cameron has the right of it," he told the reverend. "Malcolm Stewart is sly, sneaking blackguard and always has been. He's out to make trouble and doesnae believe in yer cause any more than he believes in anything but his own pleasure. He's also off his heid with the drink."

"I feared as much this evening, but I confess I did not wish to believe it when he has been such a lively addition to our numbers," the reverend said mournfully. "But the poor young man needs our help, then," he added, turning to where Malcolm had been lying and frowning to discover him gone.

Hamilton turned too, just in time to see Malcolm pick up the torch he had dropped and throw it through the downstairs window of the inn. Hamilton did not know if he had planned to do it or had simply taken leave of his senses, but if he really intended to set a blaze, he could not have aimed better. The decorators had been working downstairs, and all their paints were stacked neatly in the middle of the room with their brushes and cleaning cloths and ropes for hauling paint tins. The paints were oil based, and highly flammable. In the time it took for Hamilton to run for the door and snatch it open, an inferno had erupted inside, blocking his path to the stairs.

Clara smothered her mouth with her hand as she watched Hamilton punch Malcolm Stewart in the nose. Though she despised violence, she could not deny a brief surge of satisfaction at the horrid man getting his comeuppance. It was the least he deserved.

"Clara!"

Clara turned in surprise as she saw Jimmy at the bedroom door.

"Jimmy! What on earth are you doing here?"

"When I got home and ye weren't here, I had a bad feeling in me belly," he said grimly. "I didn't know why, but I heard that rat Malcolm at the church hall, egging yer da on to come here, with lit torches and… I just knew he were gonna cause trouble. I sent Tommy Brodie with a note for Mrs Macready, but then I thought to come and warn Hamilton, but when Malcolm started calling yer name, I just knew."

"Oh, Jimmy," Clara said, blushing and feeling quite appalled that he should have guessed where she was.

"Aye, well. Me and Hamilton will be havin' words," he said darkly, which might have been funny coming from such a young boy if he had not been so entirely sincere.

"There's no need, Jimmy. He's going to speak to my father," Clara said, going to him and resting her hand on his shoulder.

"Said so, did he?" Jimmy asked sceptically. "And you believed him?"

"Yes!" Clara said, smiling at him. "He did, and I do. He's an honourable man, a good man, and I trust him."

"You've changed your tune," he observed, still looking unconvinced.

"I love him," she said simply.

Jimmy looked faintly disgusted by this admission and shook his head. "Well, I suppose if he marries you, it's all right, but he'd best pull his finger out and ask the rev. I'll not have him dragging his feet and—"

The sound of breaking glass, screaming, and a loud whoosh of sound that made Clara's heart skip with fear interrupted his indignant speech.

Jimmy clutched at her hand, his eyes wide, suddenly very much a little boy when he had seemed so grown up just moments before. "What was that?"

Clara shook her head and hurried to the door. She snatched it open, ran to the stairs and peered down, only to see smoke billowing up towards her.

"Oh, my!" she exclaimed, pulling Jimmy back.

"Is there another way out?" he asked. "Servants' stairs?"

Clara turned around on the landing. A corridor stretched on either side of them with doors off it leading to bedrooms, and another staircase ran up to the servants' quarters, but there was no visible route down other than this one. All the same, they ran along the corridor, snatching open doors in case a hidden staircase lay behind one.

"What do we do?" Jimmy asked, panic in his voice. "I don't want to burn, Clara."

"We're not going to burn," she told him firmly, though her heart was thrashing madly in her chest. Keep calm, keep calm , she told herself. If they couldn't take the stairs, then it was out the window they must go. "Come along now, my brave lad. You must keep your head and make sure we both get out safely. Yes?"

Mutely, Jimmy nodded, but his shoulders firmed, a determined look in his eyes. "Right ho, Clara. Out the window then?" he guessed.

"That's the way," Clara said, and then gave a shriek as something crashed against the wall beneath them, and then careened up the stairs.

It was a shapeless lump, smoking and steaming, and Clara gave a shout of surprise as the scorched, sodden blanket was thrown to one side and Hamilton revealed himself. He was black with smoke and soot, his hands burned, and his hair singed on one side. He carried a small axe, and grinned at Clara, breathing hard.

"Hamilton!" she cried, throwing herself at him. "Oh, you foolish man, you could have been killed," she exclaimed, hugging him with both relief and terror.

Hamilton coughed, wiping his eyes, which were streaming. "Scold me later, eh? Jimmy, ye wee devil. I might have known it. Come on, the pair of ye. We are in the proper fix, I'm afraid, but we'll right it all before morning, if we can get out of here."

Ushering them all back into the bedroom, Hamilton closed the door behind them to keep the worst of the smoke out and flung open the windows. Clara now saw he carried a big coil of rope over his shoulder which he dropped to floor, taking one end and grimacing with pain as he tied it tightly around Jimmy's waist.

‘Jimmy, hold the axe a moment," Clara said, handing it to him and reaching for her petticoats. Using the sharp edge she tore the fabric, ripping long strips off. "Give me your hands," she said to Hamilton, and quickly wrapped the makeshift bandage about his palms.

"Thank ye, love," he said, smiling at her before turning back to a white faced but resolute Jimmy. "I've sent someone to fetch a ladder but I dinnae ken how long that will take. So, I'll lower ye down, laddie, Just hold on to the rope and dinnae look down."

"Clara!"

Clara saw her father's face, wreathed in horror as he looked up at her. He held a bucket of water, a chain having been formed to put out the fire. Clara froze, knowing that her father would be ashamed of her for what she had done. Perhaps he would never forgive her and throw her out of doors.

"Don't fret now, lassie," Hamilton told her firmly, giving her hand a quick squeeze. "Keep yer heid. I'll make everything right, just trust me. Right, Jimmy, out ye go."

"Oh, but… I don't reckon—" Jimmy protested, looking deathly pale as Hamilton picked him up and set him on the ledge.

"I've got ye and I will nae let ye fall," he promised the boy, giving Jimmy a push before he could object and bracing himself as he took the boy's weight. "Halliday, help the lad," he called down, and Clara watched with relief as her father ran forward, his arms held aloft as he waited for Jimmy to come low enough to get hold of. Clara viewed the scene with her heart in her mouth as her father took Jimmy in his arms and lowered him carefully to the floor.

"The rope! Hurry!" Hamilton called, as her father fumbled with the knot and released Jimmy so Hamilton could pull the rope back up.

"Jimmy, oh, Jimmy!"

Clara saw Mrs Macready running across the street as Jimmy staggered to his feet and ran to meet her, throwing his arms about her and holding on tight. With a sigh of relief that Jimmy was safe, Clara turned back to Hamilton, whose face was impassive.

"Thank you for coming for me," she said as he tied the rope securely about her. "I admit was rather frightened and—"

The words died as Hamilton hauled her into his arms and kissed her hard, much to the appreciation of the crowd beneath who whooped and added encouraging words.

Muttering curses, Hamilton broke off, his voice almost angry as he checked the knots he'd tied.

"Clara Halliday, if ye think I have gone to the trouble of falling in love with ye only to let ye go up in smoke, ye dinnae ken the least thing about me. Now get out the damned window and tell yer father I'll be marrying ye before the month is out, whether he likes it or no."

"Yes, Hamilton," Clara said obediently, gazing at him in wonder as he helped her onto the ledge.

Hamilton Anderson had fallen in love with her! Suddenly she was not as terribly afraid as she might have been with this marvellous piece of information to hold close to her heart.

"Don't look down, lassie. Keep yer feet against the wall as I lower ye, like ye are walking," he told her, his tone gentler now. "I'll nae let ye fall. Not now, not ever."

"I know," she whispered, smiling at him as she braced her feet as he instructed, watching his powerful frame bear her weight as he lowered her, hand over hand. The strain on his face was obvious, and she winced inwardly as she understood the pain he endured despite her bindings as he held her steady.

"No! I was the one! I was going to save her! You've ruined everything, you bloody brute!"

The enraged voice came from inside the building and Hamilton's head whipped around as someone else came into the room. Clara screamed as she saw Malcolm, blackened and enraged, shove Hamilton aside. Clara fell two feet before Hamilton steadied himself again, lowering her quicker but no less carefully as Malcolm put his arm about Hamilton's neck and began to squeeze.

Clara felt her father's hands pulling her to safety, saw Hamilton register the fact she was safe, and then the two men disappeared.

"Hamilton!" Clara screamed, attempting to run for the front door, but her father and Mrs Cameron held her back.

"Nae lassie, dinnae be a fool. Hamilton can handle that bampot with one arm tied behind his back. Ye just wait with me and yer da, he'll be down presently."

The sound of fighting and furniture breaking was almost drowned out by the sound of the fire and those trying to douse the flames had to fall back as the smoke and heat grew in intensity.

"Hamilton!" Clara cried, increasingly afraid as he failed to appear.

"I'm here," he said, his voice hoarse as he appeared at the window. "Reverend, I have another parcel for ye," he added, hauling a battered Malcolm Stewart upright. He'd already tied the rope in place and now lifted the half-conscious man onto the ledge.

"Ye would do better to leave him there," shouted a woman Clara recognised as Mrs Macdonald.

Hamilton gave a weary huff of laughter. "Tempting though that may be, Janet, Angus would never forgive me." With that, he gave Malcolm a slap to rouse him. "Wake up, ye wee clipe. Ye will help or I'll drop ye and have done," he warned.

Malcolm blinked hazily and then woke fully as he saw he was being hung out of the window.

"Argh!" he exclaimed, panic in his eyes.

"There ye go," Hamilton said with a snort, and began lowering the fellow with a deal less care than he'd shown Jimmy or Clara, but he got the man to the ground safely.

"Hamilton, hurry up!" Clara shouted, hugging her arms about herself with terror as she saw the way the smoke billowed around him. Hamilton whipped his head round at the sound of a crash close to him in the room, and whatever it was, it seemed to galvanise him into action. There was no one to lower him on a rope, however, and his burned hands felt as if they were on fire as he climbed out onto the ledge.

"Oh!" Clara exclaimed, unable to take her eyes from him as he tried to find a foothold to make his way down.

There were none, and the flames licked faster from the lower windows now, the heat appalling. Those throwing water at the fire moved faster, but it only made the choking smoke worse. Unable to do a thing to help him, Clara watched helplessly as the fumes momentarily hid him from view, and then Hamilton let go of the ledge, falling heavily to the ground with a thud.

"Hamilton! Hamilton!" she cried, uncaring of who saw as she ran to him, throwing herself down beside him and taking his face in her hands. She wiped his filthy face with her skirts as he led out a groan of pain. He muttered a few obscenities to which Clara thought him quite entitled.

"Dammit, that stings," he grumbled irritably, looking at his hands.

Clara took them in her own hands, kissing his knuckles. "Oh, my love," she said, and Hamilton grinned as he looked around the crowd who had gathered around them.

"Ye heard that, I hope. She called me my love . Ye are all invited to the wedding, by the way," he added.

Clara blushed, belatedly looking around to see the women of her father's temperance army standing about them.

"Aye, laddie. We heard. Ye must marry him now, lassie, or he'll pine away. Sore in love with ye he is."

"He'll die of it!" added another woman, chortling with laughter.

"He nearly did!" said another.

"Aye, I will," Hamilton said, sounding as if he might mean it too. He took her hand between his fingers and brought it to his lips. "I dinnae care about buildings burning, or even if I lost everything I own, but I'll nae lose ye, Clara Halliday. The thought of it makes me feart more than anything else in this life. Say ye will make me the happiest of men and marry me."

Clara looked at him, the disreputable rogue, sooty and scorched, his clothes all torn, his eye swelling shut, and bleeding in more places than she could count. He looked dreadful and wonderful, and so very, very dear.

"Yes, Hamilton, I'll marry you," she said, to which whoops of laughter were swiftly accompanied by the suggestion they fall back. The men of the town had come out to help the effort to put out the fire, and one hurried up to Hamilton belatedly carrying the requested ladder.

"A wee bit late, Jock, but I appreciate the thought," he said dryly. "Just save what ye can, aye? It looks like I may have a bit more work to do."

"Ye will be doing nae work with yer hands in that state," Mrs Macready said fiercely. "Ye will come with me this minute so I can get ye patched up. You too, Jimmy. Lord, but I've had frights enough this night to send me to my grave. Ye are turning me grey, laddie, and I'm nae letting ye out of my sight again, d'ye hear me?"

"I do," Jimmy said with a sigh, though Clara thought he did not look entirely displeased about the situation.

Her father was harder to read. He was standing stock still, regarding her as though he had never seen her before.

"Come along, Clara," Mrs Macready said, her voice firm but softer now. "You must come too. Ye can speak to yer da later, when he's calmed down and returned to his senses."

Clara glanced back at him, seeing Mrs Cameron take his arm. The woman smiled at Clara, a warm, approving smile that seemed to tell her the reverend was in good hands. Too overwhelmed by the events of the evening to consider why she should believe such a thing, Clara allowed Mrs Macready to hustle them all into the vicarage kitchens.

Clara looked around the room in what felt like a daze. Everything was just as she'd left it scant hours earlier. The saucepan was still beside the range, keeping warm, waiting for her and Jimmy to have their supper. The feeling grew as Mrs Macready swung the kettle over the range and stirred up the fire with brisk, practised movements. She settled Jimmy in a chair beside the warmth and wrapped a blanket about him, giving him a kiss on the cheek which, for once, he did not scrub away with his hand. Clara smiled, but somehow nothing seemed quite real. Nothing except Hamilton, who was large and alive and filled the room with his presence as he demanded if Mrs Macready had a drop of whisky, for he rather felt he'd earned it.

Suddenly Clara laughed. That he had the temerity to ask for whisky under her father's roof struck her as remarkably funny, and a moment later she was clutching at her sides and fighting for breath.

"It's the shock," Mrs Macready told Hamilton as he watched Clara in bemusement.

"It takes some folk oddly, and ye are a wicked fellow asking for drink in the vicarage," she scolded him, and then began rummaging in the bag she carried about everywhere with her. "Still, as ye saved my wee Jimmy and Clara, I shall let ye borrow Mr Macready's flask. I always keep it with me since he passed, purely for medicinal purposes," she added sternly, wagging a finger at him.

"Aye, I believe ye," Hamilton said, fighting to keep his expression placid as Clara sniggered beside him. "Haud yer wheesht or she'll take it away again," he muttered, shaking his head at her.

Finally, Clara subsided, and she realised it must indeed have been the shock, for she didn't think it funny now. She felt exhausted and shivery and jittery with nerves. Mrs Macready had poured the hot water onto the tea leaves, and the rest into a basin. Clara got up, intending to help Mrs Macready bathe Hamilton's hands, but the lady only pushed her back into the chair and told her to prepare the tea if she wanted to make herself useful. Clara tried but found her own hands were shaking too much as she tried to arrange the cups and saucers.

"Clara."

She turned to find Hamilton's gaze upon her, warm and full of certainty.

"It'll be all right," he told her, his voice steady, his presence everything she wanted it to be, solid and reassuring, a rock to cling to when her world turned upside down.

"Will it?".

"Aye, lassie. I'll make it so, if I must rearrange the world to suit ye."

"He would, too," Mrs Macready said with a snort before she unwrapped the filthy strips of petticoat and dipped Hamilton's hand in the water, then they all leapt from their seats as Hamilton let out a bellow of pain.

"Holy God! Are ye trying to kill me, woman?" he demanded, glaring at her.

"Ach, don't be such a wee bairn. 'Tis only a bit of iodine in the water," she told him calmly.

Hamilton gritted his teeth and endured, but did not object when Clara asked if she might bind his hands up again. Mrs Macready eyed Hamilton's set jaw and nodded, handing her the clean bandages.

"Good and tight, mind," she told her.

Clara bound them carefully, feeling Hamilton's gaze upon her as she worked. She glanced up once the first hand was done, her breath catching at the look in his eyes.

"Do ye mean to keep yer word and marry me?" he asked her.

Clara smiled and nodded, feeling suddenly shy. "Yes."

He made a sound of satisfaction and sat back to allow her to bind his other hand. "Good, for I will nae let ye go now, Clara. I think Mrs Macready had a point with wee Jimmy, and I dinnae mean to let yer out of my sight."

"Is that right?"

Even Hamilton started a little as her father's voice filled the room.

Clara turned with a gasp, her heart picking up as she wondered if they were in for an unpleasant scene. He turned to Hamilton first, narrowing his eyes.

"You, sir, are a liar. You told everyone that Clara was not in the building."

"She wasn't as far as I knew," Hamilton said brazenly as Clara kept her eyes downcast. "She went in after Jimmy, who'd come looking for me. Isn't that right, Jimmy?"

"Aye, that's right," Jimmy piped up, bless the boy, and sounding more like a little Scotsman with every day that passed. "I heard that cove, Malcolm Stewart, egging you on to go to Hamilton's place, so I figured I'd cry beef, so he didn't get caught out. I was too late for that, though, what with the time it took me sending you that note, Mrs M," he added sadly.

"You did very well, laddie," Mrs Macready said firmly, ruffling his hair.

Clara watched as her father looked at Jimmy with sudden interest. "I know you," he said slowly, suspicion glinting in his eyes.

Jimmy paled, and Mrs Macready hurried to stand in front of the boy, putting herself between him and the reverend. "Ye may at that, sir, but Jimmy is my responsibility now, and none of yers. He's coming to live with me, so long as he's a good boy and minds his manners," she added with an attempt at sternness that somehow got lost as she gazed fondly down at the lad.

"You mean it, Mrs M?" Jimmy said, wide-eyed with shock. "You really want me to?"

"Aye. I do," Mrs Macready said fiercely, glaring at Reverend Halliday like he might deny it on her behalf. "You are a sweet laddie, Jimmy, and ye deserve a good home, and if ye would like to make yers with me, I'd be glad to have yer company. 'Tis silly me rattling about alone in that house with my bairns grown and Mr Macready gone ten years and more."

Clara stared at her father, who seemed to be held up purely by the grip Mrs Cameron had on his arm. "I think I'd like to sit down, Flora," he said in a somewhat plaintive tone.

"Aye, Robert, and so ye shall," Mrs Cameron said briskly, pulling out a chair and plumping up a cushion before guiding the reverend into it.

He sat heavily and ran an unsteady hand over his forehead before gazing at Jimmy once more.

"You," he said with reproach in his voice. "Are the boy from London, the one who came to Thorney to escape a beating from some dreadful gang. The one you told me you had sent back to where he had come from, as I instructed you to do," he added, turning his accusing gaze upon Clara.

"Ye did what?" Mrs Cameron said, pausing in the act of pouring him a cup of tea.

The reverend looked at Mrs Cameron and saw, as they all did, the steely glint in her eyes. "Ye would nae do such an unchristian thing as turn yer back on a child in peril, would ye Robert?" she asked, a tone to her voice that suggested there was only one answer to this question.

"Er… well, I may have been somewhat hasty, I suppose, but I'm so glad that you have found a home with Mrs Macready, er, Jimmy, is it?" the reverend said weakly, giving Mrs Cameron a placating smile before turning to Jimmy again. "That's good, very good. A wonderful Christian woman is Mrs Macready, so you make sure you mind her and repay her for her generosity."

"There'll be nae speak of Christian charity and repaying anything," Mrs Macready said, startling them all with the force of her response. "He'll come as my laddie, to be loved like any of my other bairns. I'll nae have him feel he owes me for every meal or stitch of clothing on his back."

"Oh, Mrs M!" Jimmy said in a choked voice, starting up from the chair and throwing himself at the lady with such force she staggered. He sobbed against her ample bosom and Mrs Macready blinked hard, hugging him tightly in return.

"There's nae need for waterworks," she said, not unkindly as she was sniffing vigorously herself. "I'm glad to have ye, dinnae be forgetting that. It gets a mite lonely with all my bairns grown and gone away."

"It sounds like the perfect arrangement," Clara said, finding a lump in her throat at the happiness she could see in both parties' expressions.

"It is," Mrs Macready said firmly. "But what of that nasty piece of work who caused all the trouble?"

"He's being carried to his brother's house," Mrs Cameron said, looking pleased to divulge information they did not have. "The ladies have gone with him to explain what happened. I've nae doubt Angus will call upon ye in the morning to hear it from yerself, Mr Anderson," she added.

Hamilton grimaced, clearly not looking forward to that meeting.

"There is rather a more pressing point to discuss, Clara," her father said, his expression hard. "What is this about you marrying Mr Anderson? As far as I knew, you did not even like the fellow, let alone know him with any degree of intimacy. What has been happening behind my back? I told you she ought not to have gone to that dinner at Angus Stewart's house, Flora. I told you it—"

"You told me a good many things, and if ye are thinking of telling me Miss Halliday should nae marry a fine fellow like our Mr Anderson, I will be thinking ye have taken leave of yer senses," Mrs Cameron said frankly. She crossed her arms, and Clara saw with interest that as sweet and kind as she might appear, Mrs Cameron was not a woman to be bullied or put upon.

"This man is the one causing all the trouble, Flora!" the reverend objected.

"He is nae," Mrs Cameron said with a sigh. "Ye cannae make a man into the devil just to suit yerself, Robert. He's a good man, nae perfect, none of us is, aye. Are ye so unblemished in the eyes of the Lord?"

Rather fascinated, Clara watched her father consider this. "No," he admitted. "I have come to see that I have made a good many mistakes, and I've been hard on you, Clara. But that only shows that I ought to step in if my daughter is at risk of making a bad marriage."

"A bad marriage?" Flora repeated, eyes wide with incredulity. "Are ye thinking of finding her a duke? He's the son of an earl, he's wealthy and well thought of, and with your influence, perhaps ye could do great things together, aye?"

Clara held her breath as her father considered this.

"I'll think on it," he said, his tone grudging.

"Ye will think fast," Mrs Cameron said tartly. "For I tell ye now, Robert, a house can only have one mistress, so I'll nae be wedding ye if she is still in residence, for that will be misery for all concerned."

"Flora, I really don't think we ought to discuss this—"

"In front of yer daughter? When she is the one most concerned by the decision? Nae, Robert, we'll have this out now or not at all. Ye asked me to wed ye, and I said yes, but I'll nae take over a household where yer daughter is mistress and have her resent me when all she wants is to have a home of her own, and rightly so."

Clara watched, stunned, and not a little impressed by the ease with which Mrs Cameron stood up to her father, who blustered and muttered for a bit longer.

Glowering, he folded his arms. "I want more than I can say, to marry you, Flora, but I cannot in all conscience approve a match between my daughter and a man who not only owns a distillery but intends to run a tavern under my very nose!"

"Aye, well, about the tavern," Hamilton said, meeting the man's eyes. "I've been thinking about doing something else with it, seeing as how it will need starting over again anyhow, presuming there's anything left of it," he added grimly.

"Something else?" the reverend said suspiciously, clearly imagining the worst.

"Aye. I was thinking of gifting it to the church, so ye could use it for… I don't know. For charitable things," he said, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand and then wincing as he remembered they were bandaged and sore. "Like a place for the women to go when the men are violent with drink, and a place where ye can talk to those men in private. Somewhere that feels more homely than the church or an office, aye? I dinnae ken, I'm sure the ladies will have better ideas, but I'll do the work and set it up how ye think best, if ye reckon ye can do some good in the town with it."

For once in his life, Reverend Halliday was speechless, gazing at Hamilton with an open mouth. Mrs Cameron filled in the blanks.

"Well, I think that is a splendid idea, and most generous one, is it nae, Robert? I dinnae see how ye can disapprove of a man so willing to put his hand in his pocket and do good in Wick, and as Mr Anderson employs a huge number of men, between his shipping and the distillery, he's got a lot of influence in the town too. If such a man were to set a good example, I cannae see but it would do a deal of good," she added guilelessly.

Hamilton made a sound of displeasure, low enough that only Clara could hear it, but he nodded. "Aye, right enough, Mrs Cameron. The truth is Reverend, yer words and the work ye have done in the town have made me think. Ye were right to call me a hypocrite. There is a problem in Wick that needs attention, mind I dinnae hold with telling a man what he can or cannae do, but something needs to change. I'd be happy to help with any sensible scheme. My family has been investing in the town for some years now, but perhaps we ought to do more. I'll speak to my da. Between us all, I reckon we can make a difference."

The reverend stared at him, apparently stunned into silence so Hamilton carried on.

"Though I warn ye, I'm nae intending to live in Wick all year once we are married. If ye dinnae mind it too much, Clara, that is? I meant to discuss it with ye, of course, for I ken ye like it here."

"Where would we go?" she asked, not caring much where they lived, so long as he was there, but thinking it would be wise to know all the same.

"My elder brother's estate at Wildsyde is a vast place and the middle one, Muir, has a sheep farm there too. I'd like to be close to the family. I've bought land from Lyall to build a house. I always figured I'd move back… when I had a family of my own," he added with a smile. "It's countryside, a bit wild and remote, but the family are all there. I think ye would like it," he added, though she heard a thread of anxiety behind the words and knew it was important to him.

"I'm sure I will love it. What a wonderful place to raise a family."

"Aye, it is that," Hamilton said, grinning with relief. "Me and my brothers and my sister had a grand time as bairns. Plenty of scope for adventures, ye ken."

Clara laughed and nodded.

"Could we visit? Me and Mrs M?" Jimmy piped up, clearly liking the sound of that.

"Aye, of course, and with pleasure," Hamilton said. "That is, if I have yer blessing, Reverend Halliday, to marry Clara?"

Reverend Halliday scowled and looked around the room, every face he met fiercely determined that Hamilton should marry Clara, most especially Mrs Cameron's. Having the good sense to know when he was defeated, the reverend rearranged his expression into something rather more beatific.

"Welcome to the family, Mr Anderson."