I told the manager the signature was forged, and that I held a legal deed proving half ownership. She asked me to bring it in person, and I took the first train home. Hamish was in the kitchen when I arrived, pale, with a pile of unopened letters and an empty whisky glass. He tried to argue. I laid the deed on the table, and he read it, and he sat down, and for a long time neither of us spoke.

Eventually he told me everything. He had lost most of his savings in a failed Glasgow business and owed a large sum to people he feared. He had planned to take the loan, sell the sheep, and quietly sell the land to a developer. He had sent me away because he knew I would never agree. He said he was ashamed, and for the first time in thirty years I saw my little brother instead of the man in the good coat.

I did not call the police, though the bank manager gently told me I could. I told Hamish he had one chance. He would sign over the forged loan application to the bank himself and confess, and the bank would cancel it. In return, I would help him settle his debts honestly, through selling the old tractors and one of the fields, but never the house. He would work the farm beside me, under a written agreement, for five years.

Hamish agreed with tears in his eyes. He cancelled the loan, sold the tractors, and paid his debts within two years. He is now thinner, quieter, and the best shepherd on the hill, and we run the farm together. The tin kettle sits on the stove, its bottom firmly fixed, and we drink tea from it every morning at six. My father’s letter hangs in a frame beside the peat fire, and Hamish reads it every day.