My dear Jane,

This note will be briefer than my last to you. It must be—for the clock says it is far later than I would like. The fault is mine, for having left the tollbooth I did not return immediately to my room. I was thoughtful, and I walked, and found myself in the town’s square. It is where they will burn the prisoner, when the thaw begins, and I looked upon the timber that gathers there. They have tried to cover it with cloth, for the snow still falls. There was also a notice nailed to a post which said witch and trial by fire. There is no date—it merely speaks of the first clear day, and less snow.

I have expressed my feelings on ones who are not our faith. But it would be a hardened man—a callous one, I dare say—to see the wood gathered there and not feel a little moved by it.

It is past midnight, and the candle is low. Corrag (I have not thought or called her witch since your letter, my love) spoke of the Highland region this evening, and of the wild moor that lies before Glencoe. I did not write down a word of her story, for I was also lost on it. I did not write because my ears and eyes were on the windy moor, not the paper. She can give such accounts, Jane—she cannot read, nor write herself, and when she counted the days that she spent on that moor she used her fingers and toes. Yet she can talk. She is gifted with words, and I will not call that witchcraft. I will say it is a talent God gave her, when He made her, and before she stepped away from His name.

My landlord, who saw my late return tonight, said has the whore in chains confessed herself? Conjured the devil for you, yet? And he made a sound in his throat—a rasp, like he may retch. I think he hoped for news—for tales, to tell the drinkers. But I was tired, Jane, and I said she has not.

Nor has she. She talked of Rannoch Moor, and her words were fondly done. She spoke of a death, out on its hills—of a horse, which she felt affections for. A beast is a beast, as you know. But I think this horse was the only life which stayed with her for a year or more, which was not taken from her or called her hag, and her eyes were very moist when she spoke of the death. She has had, I’ll agree, a lonesome life.

Jane, she reminds me of you. Not in lonesomeness, of course (for you have never seemed it, nor will our boys allow it) and not in appearance (except for the hair—its thickness, and how it falls). But Corrag delights in the tiny parts of life we mostly do not see, for hurrying—a bee in a bloom, the sound a fish makes with its mouth. And I know, too, that you love such delicate things. You listen to birds singing, and do you remember our excursion to the coast, when our boys were barely born? You brought a sea-stone back with you, and when I asked why you said, I would have missed it—as though my enquiry was strange to you. I thought of this, tonight.

I thought also of my father. I asked myself what he would have done, when offered a three-legged stool in a cell before this girl. Would he have softened, as she says I do? I know the answer, of course. He softened at neither deaths nor births, and he’d never have softened at witch. He’d have hastened her death or done it himself.

My love—I also have been thinking of our loss. I confess that our own quiet death lies in my head and heart, tonight. For a year, nearly, we have not spoken of our daughter dying, and I understand why—what mother would choose to speak of such a loss? But I assure you here, in ink, that I have not forgotten. Do not think I have forgotten.

Forgive me. You suffer enough from my absence, and I do not wish to cause you any more.

I will put some light in this letter.

Corrag’s tale has brought us to Glencoe. I trust that tomorrow I shall hear more of these MacDonalds—and from one who is not as topped up with bias as the Campbells are. Or if I do not hear of them, I am sure I will hear of the glen, and its hills. All I hear from my innkeeper and the rest I speak to is what a dark place. A nest of thieves.

So I hope, that from tomorrow, I will be given such news that I might write a far better letter to London—not asking for funds (or not only) but assuring that this massacre was ordered by our present king, and that I may prove it. I may prove it. The thought lifts me. It lightens this, does it not?

I will write now, as always, of you. Are you well? Do you see my handwriting and feel as I do, on seeing your own? I hope you sleep knowing that I will come back to you. Jane, I shall.

Tomorrow I will write again. I will return to the square, whose snowy pile of barrels and wood will haunt me far less, by daylight. I will feel less sore at seeing them, and know myself again. And I shall take the cob to the blacksmith’s—for even though I have not much to pay him, the horse is in pain and will only grow worse. It will be warm, in the forge, at least.

The candle is gone. I will end this, and undress in the firelight.

I am far away, but with you.

Charles