Chapter 13: The Factor in the Chapel

Hamish Gow stood in the chapel doorway with the silver cup in his hand.

He had a lantern at his feet and his black coat buttoned to the chin.

Behind him stood four men from the lodge with cudgels and a fowling piece.

I got up out of the nettles with my hand still stinging from the iron ring.

"You took that off my kitchen table," I said.

"Six men came over your back wall while you were on your knees, child."

"Morag Cameron fired both barrels and hit nothing worth having."

He lifted the lantern.

At the chapel gate stood a farm cart with a lamp on the shaft.

Morag sat in the bed of it with her wrists tied to the rail and a rag in her mouth.

Her grey bun had come down.

Her eyes found me over the rag, and they were furious.

A man stood behind her with the fowling piece laid along her shoulder.

"Let her go," I said.

"Presently."

"First you will be sensible, as you were not in my counting room."

He came down the step and took my wrist.

His hand was damp and burning hot.

I should have pulled away.

I was too slow, and the sight came up through his fingers.

I saw a pale morning sun over a field of ice.

I saw Hamish standing in it with his arms thrown out, and his skin splitting and smoking from the face down.

I saw the whole glen standing in a ring, watching him burn.

He did not look like a man dying of his lungs.

He looked like a man who had been warned and had done it anyway.

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