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never revealed why or in what capacity. He was fond of the bottle and sometimes, in evenings when his tongue was loose and the peat threw a red glow around his room, he talked of matters which, I suspect, could have had him hanged for heresy. All of this I absorbed like a parched plant absorbs water. I confess that, in my enthusiasm - even desperation - for learning, I many a time took one of the Dominie's books into the hills when I should have been looking after the sheep.
    It was a strange irony (a word often used by the Dominie: it comes from the Greek eironeia and means the unexpected opposite; Socrates made use of irony in his speeches) that the Dominie, a man of great learning, chose to hide himself away in the valley, while this same learning gave rise, in my soul, to a growing sense of dissatisfaction. I began to feel that the hills were prison walls, closing me off from a great world outside. In truth, I began to think that to spend my life tending sheep was to do little with it.
    My increasingly unsettled state was not helped by my stepfather. He turned out to be as ignorant a man as any you could ever meet. Not only that, but he was also one of the most violent, especially after whisky. He would often beat me for little reason or none, although never when my brother was nearby; Angus, stronger and bigger than me, he left alone.
    After a few months of my mother's marriage, and after a particularly vicious kicking, I laid about my stepfather with a shovel in a great rage. He retired whimpering and bruised to the Crook Inn and I saw no more of him that night. The next day I told my mother that I was going south to England, perhaps even to London, to make my own way in the world. There were tears and protestations, but I sensed that in her heart she was happy to be rid of her youngest and most troublesome son, who after all was of little use on the land and whose head was full of strange ideas and nonsenses (and indeed, if she only knew it, heresies).
    On the evening before my departure from the valley, I walked the half-league to the Dominie. The moon was full, and it seemed that its light came down through a tunnel made of high swirling clouds. The hills glowed with an unearthly light and it was easy to see warlocks in the dark shadows. The Dominie  - I only ever knew him by that title - had been busy with the bottle and did not hear me enter. The room was warm and red from the glowing peat and he was sprawled on a chair, gazing into the fire, a Bible and a near-empty bottle on the floor next to him. He spoke without looking up.
    'Is that you off, then? To the English Queen's city, the great dunghill?'
    'In the morning.'
    He turned to me. His cheeks and eyes were red, whether with whisky or the fire I could not be sure. 'You know nothing of life outside Tweedsmuir, James.'
    'How can that be? Look what you have taught me.'
    He shook his head. 'Education is a fine shield and a deadly weapon, but it will take you only so far. You lack experience, and you are going alone into a city with more sins than Nineveh.'
    'I've been to Lanark.'
    He laughed briefly. 'Lanark is not Nineveh.' He paused, and then asked, almost as if he was speaking his thoughts aloud, 'Will we ever see you again?'
    'Sir, who but God can say?'
    'Who, indeed. Aye well, you have learning far beyond ABC, and the sharpest wits I've seen in any lad of your age. But you'll need more than that.' He stood up unsteadily and crossed to a small black chest in the corner of the room. I had wondered many a time what was in the chest, but had never dared to ask. But now he was turning a key in a padlock and pulling up the lid. 'This will supplement your wits.' To my amazement he produced a black leather sheath and from it pulled out a long, thin, two-edged dagger. He handed it to me, almost reverently. 'Mariners call it a ballockknife. It has been places and done things you don't want to know about. Roll up your sleeve,' he said. I did so. He buckled the sheath on