When the cousins were ready to leave, they found Gibbs by accident. He was in the courtyard, armed with a trowel and a rake, doffing his cap when he spotted the cousins. “Bulbs coming up,” he said. “Got to make way for crocus and daffodils.”
“Ours are in bud at home,” Judith said. “They should be blooming by the time we get back. Do you do all the gardening?”
“Aye.” Mr. Gibbs straightened up, a hand pressing his back. “Stiff I get, o’ times.” He smiled at the low gray clouds. “Spring’s coming.”
“Also true where we live,” Judith said. “We’re going to St. Fergna. It looks as if the tide’s out.”
“It is,” Gibbs agreed. “Harry can drive ye. Here he comes now.”
Harry Gibbs was coming out through a door on the other side of the courtyard. He was dressed casually, if stylishly, in a black jacket that displayed a Burberry plaid lining, and well-cut corduroy slacks.
“Do ye mind passengers?” Gibbs called to his grandson. “These ladies want to plunder the shops in the village.”
Harry paused to survey the cousins. “Well…why not?”
“We passed muster,” Renie murmured.
“I need to buy warmer clothes,” Judith said, indicating her navy blue linen jacket and white cotton slacks.
Harry snickered. “You thought it’d be warm in the Highlands?”
“She thought it would be seasonably warm in California,” Renie responded. “The plane forgot to make a right- hand turn.”
“Awkward,” Harry remarked. “Follow me to the lift.”
In the daylight, Judith could see the sheer cliff below the castle and beyond the sandy beach to the village. She could hear the surf and smell the salt-scented air. There were no dolphins, but gulls swooped above them, coming to rest on the castle’s watchtowers and battlements.
Time seemed to recede, two thousand years a mere tick on the planet’s clock. The Romans moving north to build the barrier of Hadrian’s Wall; Saint Columba setting foot on a nearby shore, bringing Christianity to the Celtic tribes; the Vikings come to raid and plunder; Robert the Bruce and William Wallace fighting for Scotland’s sovereignty; union with England under King James; the religious wars, the clan wars, the foreign wars—so many battles, leaving the land soaked in blood to make way for oil rigs and distilleries and pizza parlors. Judith sensed the irony.
“This is quite a view,” she said as they stepped inside the lift.
“I find it bleak,” Harry said. “I prefer the city.”
“Inverness?” Judith said as they began the slow, noisy descent.
Harry laughed derisively. “London. I grew up there.”
“Oh. Is that where your parents live?” Judith asked.
“Yes. When they’re not traveling the globe.” He yawned, as if the subject—or the cousins—bored him.
Judith wondered how Harry’s mother and father seemed to be living a life of leisure while his grandparents toiled away as virtual servants at Grimloch Castle. But she thought it best not to bring up the subject. In any event, the lift had clattered to a stop.
“That’s my Range Rover,” Harry said, pointing to a metallic silver SUV parked on a stretch of concrete in front of a small wooden shed by the narrow road to the village. “Where shall I let you off?”
“What should we see?” Judith asked. “We drove through St. Fergna after dark last night.”
Harry opened the back door of the expensive vehicle. “There’s not much of interest, in my opinion.”
“Where are you going?” Renie inquired. “We could get out where you park.”
“I’m not stopping,” Harry replied as the cousins settled themselves into the comfortable leather seats. “I’m going beyond St. Fergna.” He closed the door with a click that was more like a whisper.
Judith and Renie exchanged bemused glances, but kept quiet as Harry got behind the wheel. “There’s a very old church,” he said, “if you’re into that sort of thing. Presbyters and all that.”
“We may explore it,” Judith said. She looked around the beach where a couple of wading birds foraged for food. “Are those sandpipers?”
“They’re called turnstones here,” Harry replied. He suddenly took a sharp turn to the right. “That’s odd,” he muttered.
“What’s odd?” Judith saw nothing except for a couple of people much farther down the beach.
Harry slowed down. “That bird on the rock beyond the castle cliffs is a great northern diver. They’re rare around here. They go north to the Orkney and Shetland Islands in the summer. I hate them.” He honked the horn, but the big bird didn’t move. Harry swore under his breath and turned the car back toward the track from the beach.
“It looks like a loon to me,” Renie remarked.
Harry didn’t respond. He seemed to tense at the wheel as he approached the steep bank.
Judith caught a glimpse of fishing boats at anchor about a hundred yards down the strand and decided to change the subject. “Do they fish commercially around here?”
“Some do,” Harry said, cresting the hill in less than a minute.
The cobbled street was narrow and fairly steep. Harry drove past several small old shops that featured fish, meat, and woolens. Judith also espied a cobbler, a confectioner, and a draper.
