Jamie spread his arms, quite unconsciously, and the breeze caught the worn damp linen of his shirt as he tilted back his head and raised his face to the sky, open with joy.

“O may I find rest everlasting In the home of Thy Trinity, In the Paradise of the godly, In the Sun-garden of Thy love!” “Amen!” said Roger, as loudly as he could, and there were gratified murmurs of “amen” round the yard. Then Major MacDonald raised the tankard of cider he was holding, called “Slàinte!” and drained it.

Festivity became general after that. I found myself sitting on a cask, Jamie on the grass at my feet, with a platter of food and a constantly refilled mug of cider.

“Bobby Higgins is here,” I told him, catching sight of Bobby in the midst of a small group of admiring young ladies. “Do you see Lizzie anywhere?”

“No,” he said, stifling a yawn. “Why?”

“He asked for her particularly.”

“Then I’m sure he’ll find her. Will ye have a bit o’ meat, Sassenach?” He held up a large rib bone, brow cocked inquiringly.

“I’ve had some,” I assured him, and he at once tore into it, addressing himself to the vinegar-spiced barbecue as though he hadn’t eaten for a week.

“Has Major MacDonald spoken to you?”

“No,” he said, mouth full, and swallowed. “He’ll keep. There’s Lizzie—wi’ the McGillivrays.”

I felt reassured by that. The McGillivrays—particularly Frau Ute—would certainly discourage any inappropriate attentions to their new intended daughter-in-law. Lizzie was chatting and laughing with Robin McGillivray, who was smiling at her in fatherly fashion, while his son Manfred ate and drank with single-minded appetite. Frau Ute, I saw, was keeping a sharp and interested eye on Lizzie’s father, who was sitting on the porch nearby, cozily side by side with a tall, rather plain-faced German lady.

“Who’s that with Joseph Wemyss?” I asked, nudging Jamie with my knee to direct his attention.

He narrowed his eyes against the sun’s glare, looking, then shrugged.

“I dinna ken. She’s German; she must ha’ come with Ute McGillivray. Matchmaking, aye?” He tilted up his mug and drank, sighing with bliss.

“Do you think so?” I looked at the strange woman with interest. She certainly seemed to be getting on well with Joseph—and he with her. His thin face was alight as he gestured, explaining something to her, and her neatly capped head was bent toward him, a smile on her lips.

I didn’t always approve of Ute McGillivray’s methods, which tended toward the juggernaut, but I had to admire the painstaking intricacy of her plans. Lizzie and Manfred would marry next spring, and I had wondered how Joseph would fare then; Lizzie was his whole life.

He might, of course, go with her when she married. She and Manfred would simply live in the McGillivrays’ large house, and I imagined that they would find room for Joseph, too. Still, he would be torn, not wanting to leave us—and while any able-bodied man could always be of use on a homestead, he was by no means a natural farmer, let alone a gunsmith, like Manfred and his father. If he himself were to wed, though …

I gave Ute McGillivray a glance, and saw her watching Mr. Wemyss and his inamorata with the contented expression of a puppet master whose puppets are dancing precisely to her tune.

Someone had left a pitcher of cider beside us. I refilled Jamie’s mug, then my own. It was wonderful, a dark, cloudy amber, sweet and pungent and with the bite of a particularly subtle serpent to it. I let the cool liquid trickle down my throat and bloom inside my head like a silent flower.

There was much talk and laughter, and I noticed that while the new tenants still kept to their own family groups, there was now a little more blending, as the men who had been working side-by-side for the last two weeks maintained their cordial relations, these social courtesies fueled by cider. The new tenants mostly regarded wine as a mocker, strong drink—whisky, rum, or brandy—as raging, but everyone drank beer and cider. Cider was wholesome, one of the women had told me, handing a mug to her small son. I gave it half an hour, I thought, sipping slowly, before they started dropping like flies.

Jamie made a small amused sound, and I looked down at him. He nodded at the far side of the dooryard, and I looked to see that Bobby Higgins had disentangled himself from his admirers, and by some alchemical legerdemain had managed to abstract Lizzie from the midst of the McGillivrays. They were standing in the shadow of the chestnut trees, talking.

I looked back at the McGillivrays. Manfred was leaning against the foundation of the house, head nodding over his plate. His father had curled up beside him on the ground and was snoring peacefully. The girls chatted around them, passing food to and fro over the drooping heads of their husbands, all in various stages of impending somnolence. Ute had moved to the porch, and was talking to Joseph and his companion.

I glanced back. Lizzie and Bobby were only talking, and there was a respectful distance between them. But there was something about the way he bent toward her, and the way she half-turned away from him, then back, swinging a fold of her skirt one-handed …

“Oh, dear,” I said. I shifted a little, getting my feet under me, but unsure whether I ought really to go and interrupt them. After all, they were in plain sight, and—

“Three things astonish me, nay four, sayeth the prophet.” Jamie’s hand squeezed my thigh, and I looked down to see that he was also watching the couple under the chestnut trees, his eyes half-closed. “The way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent on the rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea—and the way of a man with a maid.”

“Oh, so I’m not imagining it,” I said dryly. “Do you think I’d best do something?”

“Mmphm.” He took a deep breath and straightened up, shaking his head vigorously to wake himself. “Ah. No, Sassenach. If wee Manfred willna take the trouble to guard his woman, it’s no your place to do it for him.”

“Yes, I quite agree. I’m only thinking, if Ute should see them … or Joseph?” I wasn’t sure what Mr. Wemyss would do; I thought Ute would probably make a major scene.

“Oh.” He blinked, swaying a little. “Aye, I suppose ye’re right.” He turned his head, searching, then spotting Ian, lifted his chin in summons.

Ian had been sprawled dreamily on the grass a few feet away, next to a pile of greasy rib bones, but now rolled over and crawled obligingly to us.

“Mm?” he said. His thick brown hair had fallen half out of its binding, and several cowlicks were sticking straight up, the rest fallen disreputably over one eye.

Jamie nodded in the direction of the chestnut trees.

“Go and ask wee Lizzie to mend your hand, Ian.”

Ian glanced blearily down at his hand; there was a fresh scratch across the back of it, though it was long since clotted. Then he looked in the direction Jamie indicated.

“Oh,” he said. He remained on hands and knees, eyes narrowed thoughtfully, then slowly rose to his feet, and pulled the binding off his hair. Casually shoving it back with one hand, he strolled in the direction of the chestnut trees.

They were much too far away to hear anything, but we could see. Bobby and Lizzie parted like the waves of the Red Sea as Ian’s tall, gangly form stepped purposefully between them. The three seemed to chat amiably for a moment, then Lizzie and Ian departed for the house, Lizzie giving Bobby a casual wave of the hand—and a brief, backward glance. Bobby stood for a moment looking after her, rocking thoughtfully on his heels, then shook his head and made for the cider.

The cider was taking its toll. I’d expected every man in the place to be laid out cold by nightfall; during haying, men commonly fell asleep in their plates from sheer exhaustion. As it was, there was still plenty of talk and laughter, but the soft twilight glow beginning to suffuse the dooryard showed an increasing number of bodies strewn in the grass.