“He shook his head, absorbed in one of his feats of memory, those brief periods of scholastic rapture where he lost touch with the world around him, absorbed completely in conjuring up knowledge from all its sources.”

“Will you bloody say something?" I demanded at last, in a voice that shook oiliv a little. His mouth opened, but no words came out. He shook his head slowly from side to side. "Jesus," he whispered at last.”

“He shook his head slowly from side to side, as though it were very heavy. I could almost hear the contents sloshing.”

“You aren't doing it for the sake of ideals, are you? Not for the sake of...liberty. Freedom, self determination, all that.'He shook his head. 'No,' he said softly.'Why, then? I asked, more gently.'For you,' he said without hesitation. '...For my family. For the future. And if that is not an ideal, I've never heard of one.”

“Has he come armed, then?” she asked anxiously. “Has he brought a pistol or a sword?”Ian shook his head, his dark hair lifting wildly in the wind.“Oh, no, Mam!” he said. “It’s worse. He’s brought a lawyer!”

“I prayed all the way up that hill yesterday, he said softly. Not for you to stay; I didna think that would be right. I prayed I'd be strong enough to send ye away. He shook his head, still gazing up the hill, a faraway look in his eyes. I said 'Lord, if I've never had courage in my life before, let me have it now. Let me be brave enough not to fall on my knees and beg her to stay.' He pulled his eyes away from the cottage and smiled briefly at me. Hardest thing I ever did, Sassenach.”

“It was one of those strange moments that came to him rarely, but never left. A moment that stamped itself on heart and brain, instantly recallable in every detail, for all of his life. There was no telling what made these moments different from any other, though he knew them when they came. He had seen sights more gruesome and more beautiful by far, and been left with no more than a fleeting muddle of their memory. But these-- the still moments, as he called them to himself-- they came with no warning, to print a random image of the most common things inside his brain, indelible.”