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the repartee, Jeannie winked at Flora and called back over her shoulder to their packer. ‘You got a man then, Mary?’
    ‘No, I havena,’ came the quick reply, a little too quickly to be convincing and Jeannie and Flora laughed aloud.
    ‘She’d’ve liked to be marrying Robert Hayes-Gorton hersel’ this morning.’
    ‘Who wouldna?’ Mary’s voice was dreamy but her busy hands never slackened their pace.
    Careful to make her tone sound deliberately off-hand, Jeannie asked, ‘What’s he like then, this Robert What’s-’is-name? Who is he anyway?’
    Flora actually paused for a moment in her work and stared at Jeannie. ‘You mean you dinna ken who the Hayes-Gorton family are?’
    Jeannie shook her head. She had a shrewd idea from the conversation that had passed between the members of the Lawrence family the previous evening, but by feigning ignorance now, she realized
she could learn more.
    Behind her, Mary giggled. ‘You’d better tell her, Flora.’ She lifted her head and shouted to the other girls working close by. ‘Listen, everyone. Story time.’
    ‘Go on, then, Flora,’ called a voice nearby. ‘“
Once upon a time . . .
”’ There was a ripple of laughter, but then those within earshot fell silent,
ready to listen.
    The centre of attention, Flora preened herself. ‘The Gorton Trawler Company is the second biggest trawler owner in Havelock . . .’
    ‘And the biggest is the Hathersage Company,’ put in another voice.
    ‘Ssh, let Flora tell it.’
    ‘Aye, she’s a born storyteller. Go on, Flo.’
    All the while a thousand bound fingers never stilled, sharp knives flashing. Hands plunged into the brine-filled farlanes to pick up the fish. Herring, their scales sparkling in the sunlight,
were ever on the move being gutted, tossed and packed. The coopers moved amongst the girls, inspecting the packers’ work, removing the full, heavy barrels and bringing empty ones. Thirty-five
barrels a day, Billy McBride demanded from each team and with eight hundred to a thousand fish to each barrel, the fisher lasses stood there hour after hour with not a moment to waste. Banter and
laughter, or a story, were welcome diversions.
    Like an actress centre-stage, Flora began. ‘The Gorton Company was founded in the 1880s by Thomas Gorton. He was just an ordinary fisherman then, but he married the daughter of the feller
who owned the boat he skippered. The girl’s father was against it.’ She laughed. ‘I s’pose he thought Thomas was just after his boat.’
    ‘And was he?’
    Flora shrugged. ‘I like to think they really loved each other.’
    ‘Did they elope?’ a voice asked and the listeners laughed.
    ‘To Gretna Green?’ someone else joked.
    ‘I dinna ken if they went to Gretna, but they did run away to be married.’ Now Flora held their attention once more. ‘They were awfu’ happy together in their wee terraced
house near the docks. But she was an only child so when her father died, she and her husband inherited the trawler.’
    ‘I thought so,’ muttered a voice, more cynical than the rest, but Flora ignored the interruption.
    ‘Thomas Gorton skippered it himself for a while but then he bought another boat and another until he had a fleet of ten or so. They say he was a nice old man. A real fisherman through and
through. Tough, but always fair. And he stayed all his life in the same house.’ She nodded briefly in the direction of the rows of terraced houses where the fisherfolk lived and where the
Scottish girls found lodgings. ‘Old Thomas died about twenty years ago and his son, Samuel, took over the company.’ Flora paused for effect, knowing she had her listeners spellbound, so
she began, as all good storytellers, to embellish the truth a little.
    ‘He was a different kettle of fish altogether.’ She smiled at her own pun.
    ‘And still is,’ muttered a voice thick with resentment.
    ‘He bought a posh house on the outskirts of the town and began to live the life of a