The white thing hit Alecker in the legs and cowped him. He had a fleeting impression of baa-ing sounds and of a human voice asking something, and then he passed out.
When he came too, he realized he was lying on a couch. His head rested on something soft, probably a cushion, and he thought this was just as well, as a throbbing pain was darting through the back of his skull.
'Can you hear me?'
Alecker opened his eyes. Someone was bending over him, staring with concern at his face.
'I saw a ghost,' moaned Alecker.
'I don't know what you saw, mate,' said the stranger, 'but it was a sheep that knocked you over.'
Brimster is so far off the beaten track that news of what happens there hardly ever makes it to the pages of the Scottish press. Then one day some unkind soul makes public a photograph of Brimster's hard-working, long-serving councillor, Magnus Stroup, taken during a fact-finding mission to Amsterdam. This, however, is only one of the odd things that take place in this far-flung rural Caithness community. For example, what is the explanation of the boot still containing a human foot that is found in a wheelie bin? And how does Miss Sarah Job's cat uncover the suave Mr Clove's secret? And how did a hay bale cause serious injury to a young crofter? And did Owld Toftie really leave behind a fortune to his warring descendants and can Sinclair Cattach find it first? And what is the secret of the Holy Well? For answers to these and many more questions you never thought to ask, read The Brimster Saga.
James Miller was born and brought up in Caithness. After working in London and abroad he returned to Scotland and now lives near Inverness, where he is a full-time writer. His other books include Salt in the Blood, Scapa and The North Atlantic Campaign: The Northern Isles at War. He is currently writing a history of Inverness, due to be published by Birlinn in September 2004.
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