In the height of summer it was a lovely place and the wind was laden with the scent of honey. From the knoll where the castle ruins stand, the Crew had on one occasion returned after a short time with a written list of thirty-two different kinds of wild flower. But now she and our hostess came laden with the last odds and ends of our belongings and soon we were in the dinghy pushing off for the yacht.

Inside, the scene was a piled-up drunken fair, but I at once got the cover off the engine, primed her, swung the handle, and produced the roar. Within a few minutes I had all four cylinders firing, but found that the throttle attachment was not working. I fixed it for the time being, got on top, and soon had the light anchor up. Then back to the engine, increased the roar, and let in the clutch. She nearly spluttered out as she took the load. The Crew had the dinghy painter in hand, for on one thing I had made up my mind, namely, that I should never allow the rope to get round the propeller. My Inverness yachting friend had assured me, against all my protestations, that this was bound to happen once. I was to prove to him that it should not. ‘Hard over!’ When the engine beat was established, I joined the Crew at the tiller. We were under way, with the dinghy properly in tow, and after a sweep round the bay, passed well clear of the wreck and headed for sea.

It was a good moment. We waved farewells until the ancient ruin on the rock shut out the white walls of the hotel and the figure of our hostess. Ten miles away Waternish Point lay low to the sea in a faint haze. We set a straight course for it and committed ourselves to our adventure.

IV

Out to Sea

On such a lovely morning the adventure seemed full of promise and in a very short time we were conscious of being in a new world. It is difficult to explain how deep the meaning in these last words. Two elements composed it, I think: the first, the novelty of being on the ocean making for anchorages we had never seen, assisted by small-scale charts we were unaccustomed to read, for the truth (as may have been gathered) was that neither of us knew anything about navigation or the handling of any craft beyond a row-boat; the second, the strangeness, the wonder, the beauty of the scene itself. We had both travelled in steamers and I still have a vivid memory of the mountains of North Africa rising out of the sea (with their suggestion of elephants and tropic jungles and hinterlands of burning sand), but never—and I had visited the Hebrides and traversed their length and breadth a few times—had natural features and atmospheric effects combined to make of the world, as far as the eye could reach, a place of such still enchantment that at moments its beauty was profoundly sad.