Doing No Harm Read Free Page B

taste of the ale as he rolled it around his mouth. Something in the back of his brain suggested to him that he should be more eager to visit the magistrate, now that he had found the perfect setting for the rest of his life’s work.
    After supper—shepherd’s pie with crust so flaky that he ate too much—Douglas walked up the tallest hill again, wondering why he kept doing that. Pauling met every need. Why this blasted hill? Still he climbed.
    The same view met his gaze, rolling hills, covered now with the white blooms of hawthorn, sheep, and little lambs capering about on stiff legs, without even a glimpse of the ocean.
    Suddenly he knew. Both Mrs. Fillion and Captain Brackett had been absolutely correct. He tipped his head back to look at the sky and laughed at his folly.
    “Douglas Bowden, you are a fool,” he said out loud. A ram on the other side of the fence glared at him. “You can no more live without a view of the ocean than a dolphin.”
    That was it, plain as day. He came down the hill more slowly, shaking his head over his own idiocy. When he came in sight of the inn, he hoped that the innkeeper had kept his word and not said anything. Douglas reckoned he hadn’t. Good publicans could generally be trusted with all manner of drunken secrets, or in his case, stupid ideas.
    As it turned out, the man hadn’t breathed a word. Douglas asked for another glass of ale and told the keep to pour one for himself. Elbows on the counter, Douglas offered his confession that he would be more likely to grow gills than live without a view of the ocean.
    His drinking companion took it philosophically, which meant another glass for each of them.
    “What now, sir?” the keep asked, after a discreet belch.
    “I’m not one to backtrack. It’s bad luck,” Douglas said. “Thoughts?”
    The innkeep looked at the spout. “Are you still shouting?”
    “Aye. Pour away.”
    He topped himself another one and drank, leaving foam on his upper lip. “Keep going north and then turn a bit west.”
    “That’s it?”
    “Aye. Scotland.”
    Douglas blinked. “That’s the best you can do?” he teased as the fumes tunneled into his brain. Getting up tomorrow was going to be a sore trial.
    “If Scotland can’t cure what ails you, you’re hopeless, sir.”
    “What ails me, my good man?”
    “Too much peace all at once.”

Chapter 3

    H e crossed the Scottish border in the rain, which, all things considered, was appropriate. He had heard rumors about Scottish weather from the first luff of the Corinthian, when they were stuck without wind in the South Seas and sitting practically bare in their smallclothes on the deck years back.
    “Nobody in my village would believe this much sun,” the luff had said. “I swear it rains every day at home. Thank the Almighty that I joined the Royal Navy and discovered sun.” He had laughed and turned over, to toast the other side. “Did’ye not know that God is Scottish? Frugal with the sun.”
    Douglas smiled at the memory as the coach bowled along. He had left the Royal Mail behind in Carlisle and trundled his goods into a less colorful bonecracker that took him to Gretna Green, a town famous for marriages over the blacksmith’s anvil. He looked around with interest, but no one appeared to be lined up for matrimony.
    He spent the night at Dumfries. In the morning, this innkeep, in his well nigh impenetrable brogue, informed him of an even smaller carriage headed south to Dundrennan and on to the Gatehouse of Fleet on Solway Firth. The helpful man may have suggested other routes, but Douglas was already having second thoughts about trying to live and work where he could barely understand the natives.
    Still, the clouds lifted to show off the Firth of Solway. Douglas saw little fishing boats, nets stretched behind them, trolling the cold water. He felt his whole body relax and his respirations slow down because he knew he was watching salt water again.
    Luncheon in Dundrennan was a