I heard Lochiel's shoes on the frozen ruts of Front Street, the shoes I had put on him myself the day before; I would have known the sound of them anywhere. Then the horse stopped outside, and there was the creak of a saddle and a long quiet, and then a knock on the shop door, not loud.
I let him in. He came in out of the dark with the cold on his coat and stood by the banked forge, and held his hands out to it, and for a while he did not say anything, and neither did I.
"Dyce came to see me," he said at last.
"I thought he might."
"He was very correct about it. He explained to me what he intended to do in the morning and why, and asked whether I wished to say anything to him before he did it, and I told him I did not. Then he went away." Ballantyne turned his hands over in the faint red light from the coals. "He said that the evidence came from you."
"Some of it did. It's Abram Hatchett's complaint."
"Yes." He nodded slowly. "Yes, I know whose complaint it is."