The Cone-Gatherers. Robin Jenkins

      ‘And nobody saw it but you?’

      ‘There was a thrush, I think.’

      She would not smile. ‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ she said, ‘and surprised too. He’s been in and out of Lendrick dozens of times and there’s never been the slightest hint of anything like that. I thought that sort of abnormality liked an audience.’

      ‘Seed,’ he murmured, with quiet intense disgust; and then he smiled.

      The clock struck ten.

      ‘It’s a minute or so fast,’ she said. ‘They’ve been kicked about that pair, from what I’ve heard. Nobody can say life’s been generous to them. A thing like this if it got about would destroy them completely. The wee one would be dragged off to jail or the asylum, and the big one would break his heart. There’s affection between them.’

      ‘Likely enough, Effie. Even the murderer on the scaffold has a mother weeping for him.’

      She came close, panting.

      ‘Don’t become embittered, John,’ she said.

      Lightly he put his hand on her head, and then snatched it away again.

      ‘Will you help me to stay sweet, Effie?’ he murmured.

      She closed her eyes, as if not to see her own surrender; she nodded.

      ‘Thanks, Effie,’ he said, but he did not, as she evidently expected, embrace her. He walked over to the door. ‘That’s a promise I’d better give you time to consider.’

      ‘I’ve considered it, John, many a time.’

      For a moment, realising that her feeling for him was genuine, he saw another way, clear, like a sunlit ride in a thick wood.

      ‘You’re in danger too, John,’ she whispered, ‘of being destroyed completely. I couldn’t stand by and watch that happen, if there was anything I could do to stop it.’