"Mary A. Turzillo - Ben Cruachan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Turzillo Mary A)

faceshadowed by the blaze behind its head, it knelt and put a hand to Duncan's
lips,wiping away the whiskey that had spilled from his mouth. "Duncan,
truelove! I'vecome to save you.""Annie," said Duncan. He remembered the
murderer's name, Annie Stewart, thoughhe had not thought of her for twenty
years."Let me but kiss your wounds and we will fly from here. I will show you
delightsthat the godly do na dream of."Duncan could still see his dead cousin
Donald looking down with warning. "I cansay na more," said the ghost. "You
know what she is."And Duncan gave her such a look that she stepped back. From
his death in a landbetween Ticonderoga and the afterworld, Duncan looked up at
the fair-faced womanand at his cousin.The smell of gunpowder and new-fallen
trees had faded, but he heard pipes softlyplaying "The Flowers of the Forest,"
and it seemed that he lay in a bowerfragrant with the strange flowers of a new
world. He reached out, and his handclasped a dirk. By the work on its handle
he knew it to he the same blade he hadsworn upon and left with Annie Stewart
in a cave twenty years before. But it washis no longer. It had lain in Annie
Stewart's bosom, and lost all sacredmeaning.It was as cold as if it had lain
for twenty years beneath the falls ofTiconderoga.He had kept his oath, and
Donald had forgiven him. He had no need of Annie, orof the dirk.It fell from
his fingers and he heard the wind sigh over the heather below BenCruachan. He
clasped Donald's hand and rose to walk the mountain of his soul'shome.