And by the time we reached our own shore I was laughing with her, so we sat down above high-water mark.

For there was something at the back of my mind, beyond the personal, that had to come out. For years past in every part of the Highlands we had met the young on foot between youth hostel and youth hostel, and thought it the most heartening sight in the world, for these young folk were laying up memories, most of them to lie in the subconscious, that would be of incalculable potency in all their after life. Something deeper than feelings of freedom, of health, of its being their land, their country; something that goes to the primordial roots.

And now here is the second part of their country—the sea, infinitely more changeable and exciting than the land, giving a new aspect of the land, wedded to it, yet dangerous and subtle and distinct, calling out instancy and exaltation in a way the land never does.

If our trip was to have value for anyone beyond ourselves it must show how two persons, with no previous experience of handling a sea-going boat or reading charts or coming to strange anchorages, yet managed in their fashion to do these things and to have one of the most memorable of holidays, so that what we had done others could do as simply. All attempts to stop us therefore must—

‘I wonder what would have happened’, said the Crew, ‘if the letter had got blown off the seat before we came back? Or suppose we had climbed Ben Cruachan and returned at three in the morning, dead beat?’

So we laughed all over again as we rowed to our boat, where I put up the fishing rods; for trout from this quiet bay—if the anchorage had not been too much for them—might taste good.

That evening, when we had finished fishing (small timid trout) and the piper had finished his playing, the beauty of the deep night assumed a supernatural character. Where the sun had disappeared, a dream memory of gold and yellow hung in the north-western sky and was reflected in the loch’s still water. In the gulf of the north-east there was an uprising brightness as of the coming of morning. Eastward, a cloud over Ben Cruachan turned to silver, and the blue beyond it was all radiant light, heralding the rising moon. In the south, Venus hung very large and bright, and in some faint movement of the dark water her lamp became a Chinese lantern. The black hills were inverted in the loch and the sea’s margin lost. It was the beginning of our first spell of good weather.

A touch of frost in the morning, followed by brilliant sunshine, and soon we were in our dinghy rowing for Taynuilt. Before setting out, we locked our cabin door, a thing we had never thought of doing in the most thickly populated crofter area. For all the rest of our time in the bay we had the uncomfortable feeling of eyes being about, and this prompted us to do things and take precautions for the safety of our property, that we sensibly told ourselves must be absurd. The one positive thing achieved by the recent interference was this insidious destruction of harmony with environment. It had destroyed the completeness of peace. It is not that we feared what any man could do. In that material region we were prepared for diversion and, the issue now being joined, might have enjoyed it. It was the spirit that had been evoked and lay at the back of everything, as if waking into a joyous holiday one could not quite rid oneself of something sinister behind an absurd nightmare.