"Yes, I couldn't imagine Aunt Janet doing that," she said, smiling
faintly. "Or me."

"Some of the women rule themselves," he said tentatively. "There was
the witch-woman first--and later there was the Puritan woman. They seem
to mother your women between them. There's never any telling which it'll
be."

"Aunt Janet--" began Marcella.

"She's ruled herself. Some of the Lashcairn women wouldna think of
ruling themselves. Then they go after the man they need, like the
witch-woman. And--take him."

Marcella frowned.

"It sends them on strange roads sometimes," said Wullie, and would say
no more.

It was Marcella's rest night, and tired as she was, she lay thinking
long in the silence. It was a strangely windless night, but her thoughts
went whirling as though on wings of wind. Thoughts of fate, thoughts of
scepticism jostled each other: pictures came; she saw the apple tree
breaking through Lashnagar; she saw a landslide many years ago on Ben
Grief that had torn bare strange coloured rocks in the escarpment. Just
as she fell asleep, worn out, she thought that perhaps something
beautiful might outcrop from her family, something different, something
transforming. And then she was too tired to think any more and went to
sleep.