In front of the carriage, blocking the road is a large stone Celtic cross, apparently fallen from the loose wet earth above them. Water pours down the short slope in muddy streams. The coachmen exchange looks of utter terror.

"What's the problem with the horses man?" Duncan asks, exasperated and annoyed. And not afraid of phantom shadows.

Willie looks to his friend anxiously. "There's no way around that, Captain. We'll have to -- "

"Aye," Hamish says, cutting in. "We'll have to turn back. Turn back to the high road to Edinburgh."

But Duncan pays no head. He jumps down from the coach, not bothering to respond to such a stupid cowardly statement, or to wait for the coachmen to lend a hand. Duncan glares at them as he says, "Well, what are you waiting for? Think they're going to move by themselves?"

Hamish gulps back his fear. There seemed to be little else to do. "Come on, Willy," he says. And a moment later the two coachmen are set about to moving the debris around the cross. Twigs, loose stones, broken tree limbs. They clumsily stick to the mud as they try to maneuver.

"This is a strange thing," says Willie. "How...how do you think..."

Hamish interrupts, saying, "I'm thinking of nothing -- but putting my back into it. This is a queer place to be stuck in."

Duncan levers a broken tree limb under the large cross. He strains to move it. "Come on there!" he yells to the coachmen. "You've been sitting all day. Here's a change for you."

The frightened men hurriedly put their shoulders to the great stone, but after much vocalizing, they seem to make little progress. Elspeth is clearly frustrated by this and calls out. "Do you need a hand there, Duncan?"

The coachmen give each other an exasperated look with that comment, and with a mighty heave the stone cross achingly moves away with a crash. As Elspeth thought it might. Duncan smiles at her as the two men congratulate themselves heartily. But quickly as they scurry to their horses.

But just then a dark shadow suddenly looms up onto Elspeth from behind. She can feel the hairs on her neck stiffen. She turns rapidly. On the hill above her stands a frightening figure. She gasps, and the others turn to confront a strange sight – a disheveled mad man, adorned in worn out clerical clothes and a shabby mantle. A rope dangles a crucifix from his belt. With a melodramatic flourish he points a menacing finger towards the fallen cross in the road. "Take care of the omen -- it's ill to ignore one so obvious."

"Is this your doing?" Duncan demands. But the man just cackles wildly.

"He's mad, your lordship," one of the coachmen offers. "Driven mad when he was turned out in the holy wars no doubt. His abbey burned. Priests killed or tortured. Like all the rest."

The other coachman suddenly picks up a stone and hurls it, hitting the lunatic. "The next one's for your empty skull!" he screams.

"Hold off there!" Duncan commands as he opens his cloak to reveal a threatening display of a brace of pistols. "What's your business with us?" he says to the mad cleric.

"I hope there's silver in those! Heee. Nothing else will work against phantoms. Those that God has cast out of the world. And this is their land. Can you no tell?"

Duncan's hand goes to his pistol, gently, just as Elspeth steps from the carriage. She has had quite enough. "All we can tell is that you are keeping us from our journey. And we've no time to hear your foolish tales of ghosts and witches, or whatever else you wish to rave on about."

The mad man just cackles insanely. "Hear? My tales? Heeee. But there's naught to hear. Listen, listen. Not a sound. No animal walks here, or hunter stalks -- no bird flies above this poisoned earth, or rests its weary flight in its meager branches."

There is an obvious chill in his manner of speech now -- and the others are indeed affected by it. "Listen...listen I says. Not a sound. The wind carries the music around this land, where there is humankind gentle enough to listen."

Hamish shivers at the speech. "Mad! Let's go! Away from here!"

"Mad? Oh aye, mad enough! Mad enough to know what needs knowin'. Unlike some! And you don't see it! Right down there, at the end of your long nose, pointin' like a dagger -- and you still don't see!"

Duncan silently indicates to the coachmen to hurry and continue with their clearing – he pulls a piece of silver from this pocket and tosses it to the shabby figure. The wretched creature picks up the coin and smiles, examining the "pretty picture" impressed upon it. But suddenly his expression changes to a somber one. He casually turns his palm over, dropping the coin.

"Keep your Judas silver," the priest snarls. "Better to melt it down to make shot for your pistols and a charm for your drink than to bribe away a mad man!"

The silver coin has rolled to the feet of the coachmen who make a mad grab for it. Elspeth kicks them. Duncan turns and they quickly, fearfully mount the coach.

"Though I hear that gold is no good at all against spirits. Heeeeee!" howls the lunatic.

Duncan slaps the horses, who jolt to a start -- and he leaps into the carriage as it moves off, leaving the crazed cleric to vanish in the fading mist.

"Well," Elspeth comments wryly. "It's a colorful place at least." Duncan pauses for a moment, then laughs aloud to release the tension of the encounter. The coach moves quickly off over the horizon.