Chapter 2After breakfast the gentlemen all left to fish in the salmon river that ran through the valley behind The Castle.
The Colonel went there in a pony cart, determined if he could manage it to walk down to the river and fish for as long as his leg would allow it.
There was no sign of the ladies from London, who had breakfasted in their rooms and in fact the only other woman present besides Sona was an elderly cousin who ate her porridge in a disapproving silence, sprinkling salt on it in the correct Scottish manner.
Sona was amused to see that the gentlemen all ate their porridge standing up, which her father had told her was traditional.
“The oatmeal, which was the Scots’ staple diet,” he explained, “is always eaten standing so that they are on the alert and ready for any enemy w
