The crossing might be wet but it would be safe.

‘We can be thankful there’s been nae rain,’ Andrew said. ‘I doot we’d be able to cross if the stream were much higher. As it is, we’ll be there tomorrow safe and sound.’ It would take more than a river crossing to dent his confidence in God and himself.

‘That lady is troubled about her dress,’ Lorna said. ‘A pity if it gets wet. And it so smart.’

Andrew had no patience with vanity. ‘She should have thought before she wore it,’ he said. With the toe of a sensible boot, he stirred the damp sand at the water’s edge. ‘We’re in a different country wi’ different ways. We have to be ready to adapt, all of us. I doot yon lass will find it easy.’

He spread his handkerchief on the dusty ground, sat upon it and drew his Testament from his pocket.

Lorna walked a little apart and stared back the way they had come. The trees consumed everything—sight, sound, perspective. Walk ten yards off the track and you would be lost. Every inch of the country was identical to every other inch. She looked down at her boots, powdered now by the dust that puffed up with every step. Andrew was right. Things were different here. She wondered how well she would adapt. How could you know the right thing to do in a land where everything was unfamiliar, where even the seasons were back to front and the stars unrecognisable in the sky? She was twenty-one years old and had never felt so alone in her life.

God make me strong, she prayed, having little faith that He would, working with such poor material.

In the end the lady in the silk dress, like the rest of them, did not get wet at all.

The coachman climbed onto the driving seat, took a long pull of brandy to settle his nerves, and cracked his long whip. Inch by inch, the coach creaked its way down the bank until the horses were in midstream and the coach was afloat, supported by the empty hogsheads. It looked like an ungainly ship as it ploughed its way across the river. The coachman cracked his whip again, cursing at the top of his voice, and the horses scrambled slipping and snorting up the bank, the water running in streams from their bodies. Slowly they drew the coach clear of the river. When it was secure the coachman came back to the water’s edge. Lorna saw that he had trailed a long, stout rope behind him during the crossing. His assistant had lashed three hogsheads together and secured on top of them a number of wooden planks to form a raft. He tied the rope to the raft and pushed it into the water. Grinning at the passengers, he said, ‘Ladies aboard, if you please.’

They clambered on, the lady in silk tottering uncertainly with shrill, mouselike cries as the raft was drawn clear of the bank and hauled across to the other side. Lorna looked down into the water, trying unsuccessfully to see if there were any fish.

‘Things are so different.’ The silky lady spoke apparently to the air. ‘I cannot imagine how we shall all manage.’

On the far side of the river the makeshift raft drew with a faint hiss onto the sand. Lorna stepped across the few inches of water to the bank.