Many people saw him running along the top of the crag, outlined against the sinking sun, “leaping and bounding”, “like some big old deer”.

After the fall, a very few wondered, for no more than a moment, where he had gone. “He’ll have gone down the path by the side of the burn”, “heading down before the darkness”.

He lay there a night and a day and most of another night, thinking he was shouting and screaming but making noises like “a feart wee dog” or “a morning gull beside your chimney”.

The media were interested for a day or two, only because of who he was “loving and leaving”, who he had been “kissing and telling”.

Now only the chemtrails believers think he was tripped both that time and this, now that he has “slipped on the stairs with his crutches” and “gone to meet his maker”.

The thin man looked at the report and today’s front news pages and smiled. “No comment.”