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mattered little to me that it would be well after midnight when I returned home from milking. I could always sleep late the next morning if my body demanded I should do so and thereafter I could work my day according to Bruach time, which was a time that only nuzzled at one gently, unlike city time, which has sharp teeth and gnaws endlessly at one’s contentment. And if, because of the threatened change in the weather, there was some urgency about a task, then I should hurry in the Bruach way; not scurry, which again is the artificial and unnecessary hurry that city people like to indulge in and which I liked to think I had completely forsworn.
    I planned, as I plodded on, that before I went to bed I should fill the hens’ trough with food and so deter them from becoming too vociferously indignant as they undoubtedly would if their morning feed was late; and if, as I guessed would happen, too many opportunist gulls and crows, spying the full trough and no human being in attendance, grew confident enough to visit the hen run and steal a good proportion of the food then I would compensate the hens by giving them a larger feed in the evening. The slight departure from routine might cause them to retaliate by laying fewer eggs for a day or two but since it was the height of the egg-laying season they would still provide for my requirements. Perhaps I should be later than usual for Bonny’s morning milking but she would suffer no discomfort as a consequence. It was some time since she had calved and, being mostly Highland, she produced a relatively small quantity of milk and therefore was not incommoded by a large distended udder such as that of a dairy cow. I could enjoy my extra hour or two in bed in the morning knowing my charges were provided for. Only Charlie Big Eyes would miss his morning feed and at this stage of his convalescence I reckoned Charlie Big Eyes could very well fend for himself.
    I had found Charlie Big Eyes one wild wet morning some three weeks previously hunched dejectedly beside the hen run, his feathers shaggied by wind and rain. When I had thrown a small handful of corn in his direction he had watched with what I thought to be unusually large eyes for a pigeon and when after a moment or two of hesitation he had moved forward to peck at the grain I was able to see that he had rings on both legs. It was not the first time a homing pigeon had honoured me with its presence. Before Charlie Big Eyes there had been Charlie One, then Charlie Two, followed by Charlie Three. Charlie One had arrived in much the same circumstances as Charlie Big Eyes. He too had been squatting dejected and bedraggled by the hen house and since Charlie One was the first ‘lost’ horning pigeon I had ever encountered I had felt both pleased and flattered that he had chosen my croft on which to seek sanctuary. I threw down some grain and he half-circled it, his gait expressive of both eagerness and caution, but though I spoke coaxingly it was not until I withdrew completely out of sight that he began pecking at the corn with a rhythm that was almost mechanical in its repetitiveness. Initially it was with the intention of restoring him to health and strength so he would be able to find his way back to his rightful home that I regularly fed him grain and mash but as he grew more trusting and his golden eyes came to regard me without suspicion I realized I had grown fond of Charlie One and continued to feed him in the hope that he had forgotten his old home and had now adopted me as his new owner.
    Between feeds Charlie One chose to perch on the ridge of the cottage roof and on calm mornings I woke to his anticipatory cooing for food. When the weather buffeted him from the roof he took refuge in the doorway of the byre where he restlessly awaited his morning feed. I knew that he could not survive the really wild weather in such meagre shelter and if he was to remain I had to devise some safe and sheltered place for him