When the Heather Blooms by Gwen Kirkwood Page B

for an interview at the creamery. I told Mr Whitworth she’s looking for a job away from the city. I’m almost sure she’ll get it. She’s had the same training as I had from Miss Cuttle. She’d be ideal and I wouldn’t feel I was letting Mr Whitworth down either.’
    â€˜Does that mean you’re giving up working then?’ Victoria asked.
    â€˜Yes, at the end of the summer. I’ve agreed to stay until my successor gets into the routine.’
    â€˜About time too,’ Andrew said. ‘Billy has been very patient.’
    â€˜Mmm? He’s already handing over the calf sketching and the pedigrees, as well as the accounts,’ Libby said darkly.
    â€˜And helping me with the relief milking when Arthur Williams and young Robbie Dunlop have their weekends off,’ Billy said with a grin.
    Peter made the most of his few days of freedom, joining Lachie and Mimi, catching up on the changes since Easter, marvelling how fast some of the young animals had grown. He went over to High Bowie and walked to the highest peak with Willie, eager to gaze on the panorama which he remembered from his last visit. He listened to advice on what to look for in a good lamb ready for market and helped Willie catch some of them, feeling their rumps and the thickness of their fleeces and their supple skins.
    â€˜That laddie has a thirst for knowledge,’ Willie said later that evening.
    Mimi returned to Langmune with Peter. He hitched her up on his back to give her a piggyback across the burn. He noticed she had started wearing slacks now instead of her cotton skirts and ankle socks. He wondered if she was growing conscious of her lame leg and he felt a pang of sympathy for her. She was such a lively sprite. Her father had told him she tired easily so he never took her to the top of the rough, steep hill at High Bowie. Peter suspected it was a warning to him not to encourage her. He thought Mimi’s parents were almost overprotective but he was beginning to suspect their ten-year-old daughter would have enough determination to conquer Everest if she set her mind to it. He had seen the way she clenched her teeth and thrust out her little pointed chin when she was struggling to keep up with Lachlan, but she had such a sunny nature she seemed to make the world a brighter place, especially after the atmosphere he had left behind in the house in Edinburgh. He paused, forgetting he was in the middle of the burn with one foot on the large stepping stone and the other on the opposite bank.
    Mimi squealed; her soft arms tightened around his neck and her fair curls brushed his cheek as she clung to him.
    â€˜Don’t you dare drop me in the middle of the burn, Peter Sterling!’
    â€˜Such a thing had never entered my head,’ he grinned. ‘At least not until you put it there.’ He pretended to drop her and her arms nearly throttled him. ‘I was admiring the water. It’s crystal clear as it comes tinkling over the stones.’ He stepped out of the burn and set her down on the grassy bank.
    â€˜It’s not always like this. You should see it when it floods.’ She shuddered. ‘It comes right up over the sides so you’d think it was boiling, and it’s red with soil washed from further up. It would sweep you away. Even Daddy and Uncle Andrew go down to the new bridge to cross when the water is high.’
    â€˜I’ll remember,’ Peter said, smiling down at her serious face. ‘Today the burn is singing to us.’ He bent to pick a flower. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are to have such beauty around you every day.’ Mimi looked up at him and then down at the grass and flowers around their feet. She frowned.
    â€˜Don’t you have flowers in a city?’
    â€˜In gardens we do, but just look at that blue vetch climbing up the hedge. It’s a heavenly blue, just like your eyes. Then there’s the pink campion over there, and