I am a Highlander,” Jamie said bleakly. He glanced once more at the far bank, where occasional glimpses of tartan showed through the mist, and then back. The shouting echoed from the fog. “And I am the sire of Americans.
There was a rustle near his ear, and he turned his head to see the crow. It stood on the grass a foot away, a blotch of wind-ruffled black feathers, regarding him with a bead-bright eye. Deciding that he posed no threat, it swiveled its neck with casual ease and jabbed its thick sharp bill into Jack Randall’s eye.
And I think that respect has maybe room for secrets, but not for lies.
Why, the lad’s, of course.” She turned to face me, small mouth mocking and green eyes bright with mischief. “Young Jamie.
I have noticed,” she said slowly, “that time does not really exist for mothers, with regard to their children. It does not matter greatly how old the child is.
My parents would take my sister and me out for dinner now and then, and while waiting for the food to be served, would point out the oldest, most harried looking waitress in the place, saying sternly, “Be sure you get a good education, so you don’t have to do that when you’re fifty!
It took two days, and God kens well that I recall every second of those days – yet it seems that I lost her between one heartbeat and the next. And I – I keep lookin’ for her there, in that space between.
Futility. Uselessness. Bloody entrophy. Death matters, at least sometimes.
Even in the open air, it seemed, freedom had definite limits.
So far as Grey’s own opinion counted, a love that sacrificed honor was less honest than simple lust, and degraded those who professed to glory in it.
I had seen even well-established marriages shatter under the strain of smaller things. And those that did not shatter, but were crippled by mistrust.
You underestimate your own merits, John – as always. Of course, nothing becomes manly virtue more than simple modesty.
Might he ever see Jamie Fraser again? There was a good chance he would not. If chance did not kill him, cowardice might. The mania of confession was on him; best make the most of it. His quill had dried; he did not dip it again. I love you, he wrote, the strokes light and fast, making scarcely a mark upon the paper, with no ink. I wish it were not so. Then he rose, scooped up the scribbled papers, and, crushing them into a ball, threw them into the fire.
Be careful, Sassenach,” he said, still grinning. “Ye dinna want to knock off any more pieces; ye’ll only have to stick them back on, aye?
Mm. You’d forgotten how to say anything except ‘I love you,’ but you said that a lot.
Whither thou goest,’ ” I said, “ ‘I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried.’ ” Be it Scottish hill or southern forest. “You do what you have to; I’ll be there.
I felt adrift, anchorless in a running sea. This is now my home.
You’re, er, quite sizable, aren’t you?
Those who are led of the spirit to follow a different path, let us say,” she said, a little tersely. “And, no, they wouldn’t. But the point I am making is that when such a group breaks away over some point of doctrine, they are inclined to cling even more rigorously to the rest of their beliefs and be more fierce even than the original group.” Ian.
He could imagine himself some demon of the air, taking wing to haunt the dreams of a man, seize upon a sleeping body and ride it – could he fly as far as England? he wondered. Was the night long enough?