At the foot of the Innismuir hills, across the river from the town, there are half a dozen houses against a stone wall, whose inhabitants, like many who live on the borders of the country, are bound by two masters. For town and country may be complete in themselves, but within sight of one another each takes on an insincerity or restraint, as if alike they dispute which stretches the further, or even deny that such distinctions exist at all. Either faith is wanting, or the truth courses carelessly in the gutters, they seem to say. But it is actually only here, where the two are in conflict, that the essence of each comes clear. Tempting as it must be to believe the country commences where the town revokes its walls, for each man the town ends at a different point. To cross definitively from one to the other, one must strike out further than the apparent, and stake one’s claim at a place commensurate with one’s strength - as far forth as one can hurl oneself, indeed, yet not further than one can bear. This is why it is so hard to change one’s home, for though the gesture is invariably passionate, it must take place without passion. Most overreach or underreach their aim; their truck is not with the town or country; it is with the sky and the gods within it, which, like the promise of morning light, draws them forth or turns them back upon the dark. Perhaps these find themselves, then, at the foot of the Innismuir hills, and perhaps others, too, are born there, having never been one thing or the other.

Predictably, talk often turns upon the border, and, when it does so, it is only a matter of time before Black Wilson’s name does the rounds. Who exactly he was no one knows or chooses to say. But it seems that, over the years, he saved the lives of a dozen children lost upon the hills, in between whatever nameless business he conducted as Black Wilson, before Black Wilson had such a name. And if you comment politely upon this number, it will quickly become two dozen or even three dozen; it will keep growing until you’re forced to shake your head. For something must remain fanciful about the legend of Black Wilson; if it once lapsed into fact without contention, then whatever is deeply rooted within it would be at risk. Maybe you ask about the children in question: Are they still here? What became of them? But Black Wilson will not be pinned down on that account, either. Yes and no. No one contests they lived; no one contests they survive; no one contests he rescued them. But such speculations will not draw you closer to anything; they exist only as formulae in an appendix, citations to a page; their remit is simply to satisfy a sceptic, not to live in and for themselves. In their place, as if recounting the movement with which their relevance disperses, it is preferable to remind ourselves of Black Wilson’s preternatural facility, his almost animal instinct for striking out beyond the ends of paths, for striking out in blindness like a child, as though searching and errance were acts of a common will. Through the darkness he would follow them into places without pointers governed by geographies too unqualified to understand; guided only by his own sense of not belonging, his hands would find them where they lay, carrying them back through the ground mist, past the grey winter cattle bells and the headless trees, where in the distance the lantern of his house still shines, like a star fallen on hard times.

And then, for fear that, in the excessive stillness of the room, Black Wilson has lost all form – “But he killed cats …”, someone inevitably intercedes, and, like a conscience, the dream takes flight, startled by play of light, by weight above the sky. A murmur of disenchantment passes through the room, and, drawn taut in superstition, is torn apart and divided up, some wearing it proudly, some hiding it beneath their coats. And then, like the restoration of an old order: “But he saved children …” someone else repeats softly. At which, another murmur – more like a sigh – passes through the room, this time from the opposite direction. And sometimes this even happens a second or third time – “He kills cats” – “He saves children” – the opposition and rebuttal growing steadily quieter, as what they mean in and for themselves becomes ever less clear, and each takes on the colours of the other. At such moments one feels strangely soothed, as though one were alone in a life perturbed only by familiar forces, and somewhere the wind and water come together as a wounded wail about the cliffs, while somewhere else they hazard their differences for a lampless dawn, weary yet ominous prelude to some unguessable day.