"Yes, and ran wild like a heathen with my own Jamie, eh? Stealing my mare, as I recall."

"You see," Sutherland adds, warmly. "That is why I love you so. Not a lie in you or a bit of false pride no matter what the situation. And when you were fostered to us, well, you tried to teach my boy that didn't you. Teach him something I couldna'. And what ever he learned from you I tried to undo in him. Jealous I was, his own father, against all good judgment, eh?"

"Sometimes it's not easy to know what is right to do. I am sure my father felt the same as you. And I got my beatings for it."

"Your father, rest his soul, was a wise man. But Christ, I knew -- just jealous it was not coming from me. After his mother died...well," adds Sutherland, trailing away.

"How is James? What sort of trouble is he into these days?" Duncan asks.

Sutherland is now extremely solemn. He thinks a long moment, almost as if he is catching his breath. Then, "He's gone, Duncan. My boy is gone."

"Gone? What do you mean? Left home has he? Oh, there's nothing to it..."

"No!" Sutherland declares. "Vanished! Off the face of the earth. My only son. And I blame myself. Myself." His head sinks deep and his whole body seems to collapse upon itself.

Duncan, quite worried now. "How is that? What has happened?"

"He was always a bit melancholy that one, wasn't he? Learned that bit of business from me, eh? Dreamin' and walking alone, writing his damned silly verse. Few friends after you, and none up to any good. And the dreamin' and walking quick became gambling and drinking. And debt. My debt, mind you. And who could blame him, torn this way and that by those he trusted -- by me at least. But I'd had enough for a house full of rebellious sons, and brought your name up as example more often than not I fear."

Duncan puts his hand on Sutherland's arm for the minor comfort it may give as the man continues. "He got the beatings he deserved, maybe more. But nothing changed except to harden his heart more. So, I tossed him -- out! Bolted the door and my own heart against him. A man or nothing for him then, eh?"

"There couldna' been anything else to do," Duncan says sincerely.

"Except to become something I was not. And no sense in tryin'," he concedes. Duncan can only nod sorrowfully.

"But what has become of him? Sure, he has written you at least -- or sent word."

Sutherland pushes himself to his feet and shuffles to a small chest that rests on a table by his bed. Duncan notices how his friend has aged, if even, and only temporarily. But it is sign of what will become real and permanent soon enough he knows. The old Lord opens the lid on the chest, removing a much read piece of paper. He returns to his seat, handing it to Duncan as if it were alive, and breathing, and fully aware.

As Duncan takes the document in his hands, old Sutherland sits back in his chair as he speaks, quite deliberately. "That is the last word. There, those scribblings in your hand. Miserable he was. Alone -- cast away. He wanted to come home. Home to the place that had never been. And I said no. No. Out he was, and would stay. Till he changed his ways and could prove it, mind. Prove it. To do that he was going to ask forgiveness of someone other than his father he said. An example back at me for bringing up your name. He was off to the shrine of St. Ninian's at Whithorn. Pilgrimage -- a holy place, still. To pray for forgiveness. To prove to me once and for all that he could be the son I had wanted, and he to be."

"You've heard nothing more?" Duncan asks.

"No. Nothing, for one full year now. Lost on that low road in a bleak part of the world. And aye, I've searched hard, and found nothing -- no trace of him. No sign to point the way."

Duncan senses that this is not quite true. There was something. Something fearful the old man was holding back. Sutherland notices this questioning look and loud, articulate silence. "You are a wise man, my Duncan," he says, pained. "What I did find chilled my blood. A small town on the pilgrim road, it's called Auchencairn. And full of the devil as no place I thought could be."

"I've never heard of it. What's the trouble with the place?"

"Trouble?" Sutherland says incredulously, as if Duncan, and indeed the world should know. "What is not. What is not. There rules in that town a magistrate, known well to me. Hugh Fraser of Keith - Lord Lovat. For 25 years that dark old man has been the only law in that wee spot. Waving his sword hand over a haunted place, and taken the full meaning of his title."

"You're beginning to sound like the King and his obsession with demons," Duncan adds dourly.

"Well, when I think on it sometimes I believe that maybe there is something to that. And it's not just the worry over Jamie. If you knew Auchencairn you would not be so quick to judge me. Nor would any stranger dare. 25 years ago, Lovat was the magistrate of Edinburgh. A vicious, cruel man he was, resentful of the position, but glorying in it as well. A divided nature that can make a man turn away from the light. While on his job, I knew him to cast away prisoners into the darkest pit in the Tollbooth and forget they ever existed. No matter how trivial the charge."