A strange thought occurs to me. There is of course no point of similarity between yourself and Stapleton in terms of circumstance or character. And yet there is one peculiar commonality. Both you and Stapleton know. And for your separate reasons, cannot or will not speak of it to anyone. The odd result of this is that I feel quite free in the company of either one of you, in a way that I cannot be free with any other man.
The pressure of events was increasing, day by day, and he could feel responsibility wrapped like a strangling vine about his spinal cord, reaching eager fingers into the base of his skull.
Mmphm,” I said, sounding self-consciously Scottish.
Act as though this one patient is the only person in the world – because to do otherwise is to lose that one, too. One at a time, that’s all you can do. And you learn not to despair over all the ones you can’t help, but only to do what you can.
Wakefield’s not my own name, see; the Reverend gave it me when he adopted me. He was my mother’s uncle – when my parents were killed in the War, he took me to live with him. But my own name is MacKenzie.
There was a curious peace in this day, a sense of things working quietly in their proper courses, nothing minding the upsets and turmoils of human concerns. Perhaps it was the peace that one always finds outdoors, far enough away from buildings and clatter. Maybe it was the result of gardening, that quiet sense of pleasure in touching growing things, the satisfaction of helping them thrive.
And so he and Ian – who, it turned out, could also knit and was prostrated by mirth at my lack of knowledge – had taught me the simple basics of knit and purl, explaining, between snorts of derision over my efforts, that in the Highlands all boys were routinely taught to knit, that being a useful occupation well suited to the long idle hours of herding sheep or cattle on the shielings.
His most intimate keepsake was one that could not be lost or stolen, though. He flexed his left hand, where the thin white line of the letter “C” – carved a little crookedly, but still perfectly legible – showed on the mound at the base of his thumb. The “J” he had left on her would be likewise still visible, he supposed. He hoped.
Still, when had the right to live as one wished ever been considered trivial? Was a struggle to choose one’s own destiny less worthwhile than the necessity to stop a great evil?
I’ve yet to see the auld woman believes in witches, nor the young one, neither. It’s men think there must be ill-wishes and magic in women, when it’s only the natural way of the creatures.
The phrase “Blessed are those who have not seen but have believed” floated through his head. It was maybe not the believing that was the blessing; it was the not having to look. Seeing, sometimes, was bloody awful.
I found the rooted silence, rushing stream, and rustling leaves balm to the spirit.
Doom, or save. That I cannot do. For I have no power beyond that of knowledge, no ability to bend others to my will, no way to stop them doing what they will. There is only me.
Roger lay in the dust of the road, bruised, filthy, and starving, with a woman trembling and weeping against his chest, now and then giving him a small thump with her fist. He had never felt happier in his life.
Well, of course he does, Sassenach,” Jamie said, reaching for another slice of toast. “He left her his dog.
God kens well enough that boys need to be smacked, or he’d no fill them sae full o’ the de’il.
When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.
It was a hot summer – there wasn’t any other kind in Boston.
What Jack Randall had done to him had sunk into his soul as surely as the flails of the lash had sunk in his back, and had left scars every bit as permanent. I.
Come to me. Cover me. Shelter me, a bhean, heal me. Burn with me, as I burn for you.