First Hundred Words: Heather and Heath

I've been playing with the first 100 words of some of my books. To avoid cutting off in the middle of a sentence, I'll go to 100 and then add the rest of the sentence in question. Here's the opening hundred of HEATHER AND HEATH

       It had been late summer when the May Queen left the dock and now, a bare seventeen weeks later, it was summer again. Summer in December, when the loch-side would soon be mantled with snow and the herds keeping their sheep close ... the heather would be dim in the glens and up the brae.

            Ness McCleod tamped homesickness as her father had tamped tobacco in his pipe. No more Scottish winters for her, and just as well. Loch Haven was no longer home; not with Phemie wed again to Lachie Douglas. The thought was distressing, and Ness spared a thought for Phemie's son Donal, whose mother had turned against him to flatter the Douglas.