‘No. You see her husband was all for the crofters and the Land League. And her husband’s brother, also a minister, went to prison for them. So I suppose he was frightened.’

Then he told me so complicated a story about the history of the salmon rights, invoking kings and chiefs and centuries and charters, that I wondered how any ordinary mere man could have squeezed the right to throw the tiniest trout fly.

‘It’s not settled yet,’ he said. ‘But in view of all the circumstances the Crown itself does not feel confident enough to force an issue. Your name and address may be taken, however.’

‘One gets used to giving that. So this was all Breadalbane —Campbell—country once?’

‘Once—but not now. You know the old prophecy about the Campbells?’

‘No.’

‘That an old grey horse will one day carry all they possess over the ridge of Tyndrum.’

‘You make me see the wind in its grey tail.’

‘Myself,’ he said, ‘I have always found the Campbells very nice folk.’

‘But pretty good politicians. The grey horse is not likely to be foaled for a little while yet. So we can hold our sympathy even if Breadalbane has lost a few acres.’

‘Perhaps, perhaps,’ said Mr. Macdonald.

The matter of the right of way was inclined to get lost in these excursions, and presently was forgotten altogether when a learned antiquary pointed toward Ardchattan on the other side of the Loch and said, ‘It was over there that Bruce held his last Gaelic Parliament.’

‘I thought that was all Deirdre—Ossian—country,’ I said, astonished.

‘It’s that, too. But Wallace passed along here before Bruce. And each of them fought a battle back there in the Pass of Brander.’

‘Really!’

‘Yes. And Cumberland passed this way after Culloden. It was some of his officers who saw all this fine wooded country and thought it would be the very place for smelting iron—with the charcoal.’

‘It was a great thought.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The English were always good at making money.’

‘And at using it, too.’

‘That’s true. Not so long ago they dug up some old coins over there at the Priory at Ardchattan. They were the coins of Edward the First.’

‘You mean English subsidies against Bruce—even then?’

He smiled at my surprise. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘They were great politicians, the English.’

‘Not greater than the Campbells?’ I asked, jealous for my country.

‘Well—not greater perhaps,’ he said. ‘Just bigger.’

‘But tell me, they didn’t actually come and start smelting iron here?’

‘Oh yes. The foundries were working in my time. If you come over to this knoll, I’ll point them out to you. Sailing ships used to bring in the ore. But look—do you see that standing stone on the hill there above the village? That stone was put up by the furnace workers to celebrate the Battle of Trafalgar. It was the first monument to that battle to be put up anywhere in the world.’

‘In Taynuilt in Argyll! They are a very great race, the English,’ I said, deeply moved.