How Can a Man Be Born Again When He Is Old

It is a roughshod occupation,he wrote, and God aid me, if I am no hero, I am damned good at information technology. You lot empathise, I retrieve, for I know yous are the same.

The quill had left marks on his fingers, and then tightly every bit he'd gripped it. He laid it downwards briefly, rubbing his mitt, and then took information technology upward once more.

God help me further,he wrote, more than slowly. I am afraid.

Agape of what?

Some arsehole panicked….

I am afraid of everything. Afraid of what I may have done, unknowing—of what I might do. I am afraid of death, of mutilation, incapacity—only whatsoever soldier fears these things, and fights regardless. I have done it, and—

He wished to write firmly, and will exercise it again.Instead, the words formed beneath his quill as they formed in his mind; he could not help but write them.

I am afraid that I might find myself unable. Not just unable to fight, only to command.He looked at that for a moment, and put pen tentatively to the paper once again.

Take you lot known this fear, I wonder? I cannot retrieve information technology, from your outward aspect.

That outward aspect was vivid in his mind; Fraser was a human being who would never laissez passer unnoticed. Even during their about relaxed and cordial moments, Fraser had never lost his air of command, and when Gray had watched the Scottish prisoners at their work, it was manifestly that they regarded Fraser equally their natural leader, all turning to him equally a thing of course.

And so, in that location had been the affair of the scrap of tartan. He felt hot blood launder through him and his breadbasket clench with shame and anger. Felt the startling thud of a cat-o'-nine-tails on blank mankind, felt information technology in the pit of his stomach, searing the skin between his shoulders.

He shut his optics in reflex, fingers clenching so tightly on the quill that it croaky and bent. He dropped the ruined feather and sat still a moment, breathing, and so opened his eyes and reached for another.

Forgive me,he wrote. And and then, inappreciably pausing, And yet why should I beg your forgiveness? God knows that information technology was your doing, every bit much equally mine. Between your actions and my duty…But Fraser, too, had acted from duty, even if there was more than to the matter. He sighed, crossed out the concluding chip, and put a period afterwards the words Forgive me.

We are soldiers, you and I. Despite what has lain between us in the past, I trust that…

That we understand 1 another.The words spoke themselves in his mind, only what he saw was not the agreement of the burdens of control, nor yet a sharing of the unspoken fears that haunted him, abrupt as the sliver of metallic next his heart.

What he saw was that ane frightful glimpse of nakedness he had surprised in Fraser's face, naked in a way he would wish to see no man naked, let solitary a man such every bit this.

"I sympathise," he said softly, the sound of the words surprising him. "I wish it were non and then."

He looked down at the muddled mess of paper earlier him, blotched and crumpled, marked with spider blots of confusion and regret. It reminded him of that terse note, written with a burnt stick. Despite everything, Fraser had given him aid when he asked it.

Might he e'er see Jamie Fraser again? In that location was a practiced chance he would not. If chance did not kill him, cowardice might.

The mania of confession was on him; best make the about of information technology. His quill had dried; he did not dip it over again.

I dearest you,he wrote, the strokes light and fast, making scarcely a mark upon the paper, with no ink. I wish information technology were not and so.

So he rose, scooped up the scribbled papers, and, crushing them into a ball, threw them into the fire.

He was unfortunately notdead when he woke in the morning, but wished he were. Every muscle in his body ached, and the ghastly residue of everything he had boozer clung like dusty fur to the inside of his throbbing head.

Tom Byrd brought him a tray, paused to view the remains, and shook his caput in a resigned manner, but said zip.

Oddly enough, his hands did not shake. Still, he clasped them advisedly round his teacup and raised it cautiously to his lips. Every bit he did and so, he noticed a alphabetic character on the tray, sealed with a blob of crimson wax, in which the initials SC were incised. Simon Coles.

He sat upward, narrowly avoiding spilling the tea, and fumbled open the cannonball, which proved to contain a brief note from the lawyer and a sail of paper containing several drawings, with penciled descriptions written tidily beneath. Descriptions of the bits of jewelry that Anne Thackeray had taken with her when she eloped with Philip Lister.

"Tom," Grayness croaked.

"Yes, me lord?"

"Become tell the stable lad to ready the horses, then pack. We'll leave in an hour."

Both Tom's eyebrows lifted, just he bowed.

"Very good, me lord."

He had hoped to escape from Blackthorn Hall unnoticed, and was in the human action of depositing a gracious notation of thanks—pleading urgent business every bit alibi for his abrupt removal—on Edgar's desk, when a voice spoke of a sudden backside him.

"John!"

He whirled, guilt stamped upon his features, to notice Maude in the doorway, a garden trug over ane arm, filled with what looked like onions simply were probably daffodil bulbs or something agronomical of the sort.

"Oh. Maude. How pleased I am to see you. I thought I should have to have my leave without expressing my cheers for your kindness. How fortunate—"

"Yous're leaving united states of america, John? And then soon?"

She was a tall woman, and handsome, her nighttime skillful looks a proper match for Edgar's. Maude's optics, however, were not those of a poetess. Something more in the nature of a gorgon's, he had always felt; riveting the attending of her auditors, even though all instinct bade them abscond.

"I…yes. Yep. I received a letter—" He had Coles'due south note with him, and flourished it as testify. "I must—"

"Oh, from Mr. Coles, of course. The butler told me he had brought yous a annotation, when he brought me mine."

She was looking at him with a well-nigh unaccustomed fondness, which gave him a small chill up the back. This increased when she moved of a sudden toward him, setting bated her trug, and cupped a hand backside his head, looking searchingly into his eyes. Her breath was warm on his cheek, smelling of fried egg.

"Are you sure you are quite well enough to travel, my dear?"

"Ahh…yes," he said. "Quite. Quite sure." God in heaven, did she mean to buss him?

Give thanks God, she did not. After examining his confront feature by characteristic, she released him.

"Y'all should accept told us, you know," she said reproachfully.

He managed a vaguely interrogative noise in answer to this, and she nodded toward the desk. Where, he now saw, the newspaper cutting referring to him as the Hero of Crefeld was displayed in all its glory, along with a note in Simon Coles's handwriting.

"Oh," he said. "Ah. That. It actually—"

"We had not the slightest idea," she said, looking at him with what in a lesser woman would have passed for doe-eyed respect. "You are so modest, John! To think of all you have suffered—it shows then conspicuously upon your haggard countenance—and to say non a word, even to your family!"

It was a cold 24-hour interval and the library burn down had not been lit, only he was get-go to feel very warm. He coughed.

"At that place is, of course, a certain caste of exaggeration—"

"Nonsense, nonsense. But of course, your natural nobility of graphic symbol causes you lot to shun public acclaim, I understand entirely."

"I knew you would," Grey said, giving up. They beamed at each other for a few seconds; then he coughed again and fabricated purposefully to pass her.

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Source: https://litlife.club/books/171204/read?page=53

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