When she had disappeared the male tyrant lowered his ruff, and even stood up a little in the water to flap his wings, as a man might dust his palms. That was that.

Deigning at last to give me a glance with his round black eye, he paddled slowly back towards a second female swan, which had been following him at a distance, lingeringly, uncertain. Was this the mother of the daughter that was being driven from home? There was certainly something of that in her attitude, of holding aloof, of regret, following yet not following.

Meantime the ruffian himself must have had suspicions, for presently he deliberately paddled to see what was going on round the point. All at once up went the ruff, and off he set, the mother following more uncertainly than ever. Finally, all three passed from view.

Two days later, the tyrant and his wife reappeared, but without the daughter. Sometimes the Crew would wonder about her, and about the lonely anchorages she would make at night. ‘For it is different—daughter leaving a mother—from a son.’ (Unless, of course, it was ‘the eternal triangle’!)

In the deep dusk that night, between ten and eleven, an uncertain wind flawing the surface of the loch, there came across the water the slow notes of a pibroch played on the pipes. I knew the theme but could not name it. The wind brought it and bore it away, in the doubling, the trebling . . . and finally the slow profound statement of the theme again. It affected us like a spell, and when it had ended all the night was quiet.

XVII

Landlord Rampant

Off we set for stores to Taynuilt on a fine morning. The glass was going up. The good weather was coming. We tied the dinghy below high-water mark, for the tide had to ebb, and walked along the obviously ancient path, over the wooded hill and down to the bay, by the cottages, and up the stream to the Post Office, where we got our letters. Then to the hotel, where we refreshed ourselves and read the strange miscellany that a fortnight will gather together.

The sun was warm. We were in no hurry, did our shopping leisurely, and lay on a bank looking at Cruachan, wondering if we should tackle him some day. The goodness of life entered in at the pores. A week of perfect weather now and living might assume a dream-like beatitude. A woman in a shop had got lettuces from a private garden for the Crew. Tomatoes. A cabbage. Reaping machines were humming in the fields and the new-mown hay scented the air. ‘I think she’ll get me some fresh eggs, too,’ said the Crew drowsily of the woman with whom she had left her milk pail.

The woman duly produced the eggs and the Crew talked to her so long that I all but fell asleep in the shade. Then we came to a cottage, ablaze with roses and hydrangeas, and the Crew stood and stared, until the owner came, removing his old panama, and spoke to her.