“Ach!”Norrie said. “A good storm will sweep your wee house away just like that.”
“He is right. Where is Mr. Stewart?” Meg asked.
Clarke pointed toward the crane and the huge spool. “He’ll be up shortly.”
“Up?” Meg asked.
“Come and see.” Clarke motioned them to follow.
Hearing shouts from the cliff below, Meg assumed Dougal Stewart was down there. She knew he regularly rolled up his sleeves to work alongside his men. She had a grudging respect for that, but she still wanted the lighthouse to be built elsewhere.
But even if the crews left tomorrow, Sgeir Caran would never be the same. She clutched her plaid shawl, her body pelted and rocked by the wind at the top of the mound. From where she stood, she could see the deep crevice in the higher end of the rock that hid the shallow cave where she and Dougal had found shelter and solace on that wild and unforgettable night.
Her heartbeat quickened. She had come to Sgeir Caran often enough since then to make sketches, but each time, she felt a secret thrill and an undercurrent of regret. In that cave, her life had changed irrevocably, and her heart had been stolen—if she dared admit it.
Alan Clarke went near the cliff edge, and Meg noticed that an iron railing had been installed there. Men worked noisy cranks and pumps to guide the stout ropes and hoses that snaked over the edge. Clarke picked up a hose fitted with a funnel end and shouted into it, put it to his ear for a reply, and called out to themen on the machinery. They worked furiously to spool in the ropes and hoses.
He beckoned to Meg and Norrie, who approached the iron railing. “Careful! Dougal Stewart will be cross with me if you fall into the sea.”
Leaning against the railing with a secure grip, she saw that the ropes and hoses dropped down into the sea. As the men steadily winched the ropes and hoses upward, the surface of the water began to bubble.
“Here he comes,” Clarke said. A platform surged out of the sea, swaying on ropes.
A monstrous creature rode the planks, saturated, swollen, pale. The large head was a glass and metal sphere, and the creature’s arms and paws were enormous. Water gushed from the beast to pour off the platform as the ropes drew it higher.
“What in the wee man is that!” Norrie exclaimed.
“A diver!” Meg gasped, astonished. She had seen them in engraved illustrations, but never in reality. “Is that Mr. Stewart?”
“Aye,” Alan Clarke said. “He went doon the deep to examine the base of the rock.”
“Huh!” Norrie said. “Mother Elga was right. He is a kelpie for certain.”
Meg blinked at him. Norrie grinned and bent to watch the diver rise higher.
As the platform neared them, Meg glimpsed Stewart’s lean, now-familiar face behind the glass porthole windows set in the brass helmet. Three valves, attached to the hoses, snaked toward the bellows. Two, she realized, pumped air into the helmet so he could breathe. The third hose ended in the funnel that Alan Clarke had used as a speaking tube.
Diving was common enough, she knew, in salvage and bridge and dock construction. The Matheson Bank had financed suchventures on Scotland’s east coast, and she had contributed to the building fund. It made sense that divers would be necessary in a lighthouse project.
Necessary, she thought, and very dangerous. She pressed her lips together, concerned, suddenly wanting only to see that helmet off him, see him take a breath of fresh sea air.
“Please hurry,” she murmured, while Norrie glanced at her.
The platform drew level with the cliff, and men grabbed the ropes to swing it inward to safety. Two held it steady while two others took Dougal by the arms to support him as he walked, his steps slow and cumbersome. The diving suit, helmet, boots, and weighted belt must be an enormous burden out of the water, she thought.
With help, he sat on a ledge of the rock while one man unscrewed the helmet and another man unbuckled the heavy gauntlets. When helmet and gauntlets were lifted away, Dougal emerged, reaching up to tousle his hair and rub his face. He coughed, took a drink of water from an offered ladle, and glanced up.
“Miss MacNeill! Welcome to Sgeir Caran.”
Meg felt a wash of gratitude, sudden and clear, to see him safe. “Greetings,” she said.
Her cheeks heated in the cool sea breeze as she met his piercing green gaze. Seven years ago, he had risen out of the sea, and again today. Mother Elga’s kelpie was real, in a sense.
“Hey there, Norrie,” he was saying. “Give me a minute to get out of this gear.”
“You will need more than a minute, laddie!” Norrie said with clear admiration.
Stewart looked at Alan Clarke. “Evan?”
