Free The Silver Darlings by Neil M. Gunn

there was a church here at one time, though I have heard it said that long, long ago it was a monastery and the name it had was the House of Peace.”
    “The House of Peace,” she murmured in a tone of soft wonder.
    He gave her a side glance and smiled. “You like that name?”
    “Yes,” she answered, confused slightly, for the name had been like a benediction sounded softly in her mind. All in the moment her eyes had brightened and a quickening come to her skin as if the far, soundless echo of peace hadentranced her. They were both aware of what had happened , and if it made Catrine slightly self-conscious, it otherwise did no harm; for Roddie pointed to a round tower, still of some height though in ruins, too, ona tongue of ground that rose between the main stream and its principal tributary which had their confluence in a pool on their left hand. “That’s an old fort, or dun,” he said, “though the professor—that’s the name we give the schoolmaster—calls it a broch. Anyway, it’s so old that no-one knows much about it, for he says it goes back to long before the coming of the Vikings. It has two little rooms, round rooms, built into the wall inside. They could build in any case; I’ll say that.” Then he did a little thing that she was ever after to remember. For a short distance the path was built up with great boulders to protect it from the river floods. “That fellow,” he said, “has been slipping for some time, and if he’s not stopped now he may go.” Thereupon, straddling his legs, he stooped and, getting his hands under the edges of a great thick flagstone, slowly heaved it back into position . She saw his neck and upper arms swell and his face redden in the sustained effort. Then he stood up lightly and dusted his hands, not as any ordinary person might, carelessly palm to palm, but with quick explosive flicks of finger-tips against finger-tips from the distance of an inchor so; and in the couple of steps it took him to regain his balance properly he seemed to walk on the outer edges of his feet, jauntily. “This path is useful,” he explained, “for bringing things up from the shore. Here, when we break in ground, we like to manure it well with seaweed and fish guts. No manure like it for giving ground heart. You wouldn’t do that away up in the strath of Kildonan?”
    “No,” she answered, still conscious of his explosive strength, for he was not heavily built.
    They crossed the tributary by stepping-stones and proceeded up its right bank through a wide display of wild roses, from snow-white to deep crimson. She exclaimed at the unexpectedness of the pretty sight. There were two long pools beyond, and then the land narrowed upon the small stream in an intimate way that touched her fancy. The banks rose steeply, with faces of rock, grey salleys, small vivid green birches, the drooping fronds of large ferns, foxgloves and other wild flowers, all in a tangle, while the water dropped from little pool to little pool or slid in cool glissades down sloping rocks, slippery with clean green summer slime.
    “That’s your place now,” he said, coming to a stop and pointing to a long low house, thatched with rushes, its head much higher than its tail as it lay into the slope of the ground. “And if I’m not mistaken,” he added, “that’s Kirsty herself wondering who in all the world I have with me now.”
    His quiet assessing humour brought from Catrine a quick glance and smile. She thanked him and took her bundle. “I go this way,” he said, “and I have to hurry, as I’m late for the sea. Good-bye.” Giving her an easy, friendly smile, he turned and crossed the burn, having asked in all their talk neither her name nor her business. This complete and natural lack of interest in her affairs was so refreshing an experience that she went up the slope towards Kirsty with a deepening smile of expectancy and the stranger’s turmoil in her breast.
    And then Kirsty saw her, and