“Bagpipes, Mary. Bagpipes. Twice you heard them, and twice after saw the ‘spirits’ which gave credence to all else, the foundation on which the whole illusion was built. Here is what must have happened.
“The first spirit I can answer for plainly, for it was myself. James and I had at last crossed the high road, and returned to land we could think of as our own. He had been given the pipes by a crippled soldier, one of our own, who took us in along the way. And now James would be silent no longer. He insisted that we return as proud veterans, and not skulking thieves. So as we parted ways at the last, and when he deemed me safely hidden by the rise that shields the cottage, he began to play, and marched off in defiant glory.
“Shortly afterward I found you in tears, lying across a grave that bore my name. It broke my heart to leave you there, even with the spoken promise---you did not imagine it---that I would come back to you. But I was determined to bring no danger upon you, or upon this house, until the pursuit had cooled, and the chance of discovery grown less. Looking back, it was a cruel mistake. But I was obsessed. I was going to escape, and bring no danger upon you. I hope you can understand, and forgive me.”
“Of course,” said his mother, for both of them.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. Mary nodded gently, and asked him to continue.
“All right.... And yet again, by the Standing Stone, you heard bagpipes. Did they play Scotland the Brave?”
“Yes,” she answered, understanding at last.
“It is the only song James knew, or ever wanted to learn. It was he you saw: pale with affliction, kilted as a sign of defiance, as he could not be by day. He must have been half dead by then.....
“For he, too, was determined to bring no harm upon his family. Like myself he would not go to them, though he was too proud, and too far gone, to conceal himself as I did. I could not convince him to follow me to the hiding place, and I could not force him. I believe now that he must have spent those last nights in wandering and delirium, waiting for the chance to perform his final deed. But unstable as his mind had become, the heart beneath remained intact. And there were moments of perfect lucidity, as when he looked up from the ravine, and saw you.
“He fled from your mother not in fear, but to protect her, and yourself.” He released a deep breath. “The Stone, and the words of the spell, were impotent but for the power you gave them. The mind creates worlds of its own, every bit as tangible, and every bit as dangerous, as the physical reality we all share. Give up your common sense, your right to question, and you become a helpless lamb among the wolves of this world.”