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Leadem, Christopher

"Highland Ballad"


Not only would the exposure to the elements do injury to himself, but
his very presence, in any way connected with them, would only increase
their peril ten-fold. And the still deeper question, which lay at the
back of all others, which haunted him and gave him no peace:
What could one frail, unarmed man do against the grim, unyielding
walls of MacPherson Castle?
As evening began to deepen, and in the same hour that the cell door
was being closed upon the women, his inner turmoil reached a fever
pitch. Something had to be done! He paced back and forth, howling his
rage at the walls.
And yet his mind knew, for all the throbbings of the heart, that he
could not yield. He had learned the hard way, in the stockade, that
there were times when self-denial and an iron discipline were the only
way. And for all the pain it cost him, he knew that he must wrap
himself warmly and try to sleep. In the morning there might be some
meaningful action he could take. And there was nothing, save
pneumonia, that he could accomplish how, alone and in the dead of
night.


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