Bordered by scrub oak and maple, alone in its silent dell, it was a place removed from time, hallowed, and to her, sacred. For here, among the stones of four hundred years of Stuart knights, lay the body of her beloved, her soul. Her brother. Brushing back a long lock of raven hair, she stepped furtively towards the mound of earth that was like an iron door between them. 

 Michael James Scott 1719 --- 1746 He died a man’s death, fighting for his home. 

 The words on the small tombstone had always seemed to her a blasphemy, the hurried cutters finding it more important to speak of patriotism than to give the date of his birth. These trite, inadequate words were all that future generations would ever know of him. They could never see him as he had been in life---the shock of curling, golden hair, the fierce and penetrating sapphire eyes. He had been strong and stubborn like all his blood, but with a sudden tenderness that had long ago stolen her heart. Her friend, brother and father. And in the most secret depths of her heart, her lover as well. 

 One image of him remained indelibly carved in her memory. 

 He stood silhouetted against the open door of the shepherd’s hut, in which they had taken shelter from a sudden, violent downpour. The play of lightnings beyond flashed his tall, muscular form into brilliant lines out of the grey. He stood defiant, legs spread, crying out to the storm that lashed him. Aye! It’ll take more than that to kill a Scott! And he had laughed his fearless laugh. 

 “Michael don’t, I’m scared,” she said aloud. And he closed and barred the door, and came to her with the gentle smile which he gave to her alone..... 

 She fell to her knees on the cold ground, unable to stop the flow of bitter and blessed memories. She wrapped the shawl tighter, remembering, feeling as deeply and surely as if it were not a thing of the past, but happening now, this moment: 

 He came to her, and put his cloak about her. Then feeling her shiver in his arms, changed his mind. “No. We’ll have to get you out of your wet things. I’m an ugly brute, but you’ll catch your death.” 

 He built a warming blaze in the fireplace, then took the heavy woolen blanket from the bed and brought it to her. “Come on now. No time for being shy; I’ll turn away.” And he carefully tended the fire as she shed her dripping garments, and wrapped herself in the blanket. 

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