‘Oh, man?’

‘Yes. And I have never seen so many squeeb about.’

‘Ah, that explains it,’ said the old man. ‘I remember. . . ’

IX

Round Ardnamurchan

From Arisaig to Moidart is a land of sea lochs, shoals, rocks, sands that gleam like surf to distant eyes, hills, glens, and Jacobite history. But it would need, as the Arisaig yachtsman said, a special yacht to itself and most of a summer; while the land running out from Loch Moidart to Ardnamurchan Head—comparatively little known—has always had a special attraction for me.

But I resist the temptation of even touching on the history, with its ‘Pickle the Spy’ stories, or on such aspects of the country as I knew from previous contacts, for the Walshs had to be in Oban in two days, if they were to occupy their berths in the Glasgow-Dublin boat. It looked an impossible job for the Thistle, with the wind blowing, as we returned from Mallaig, and we gave up all hope of it. But in the morning there was a calm under heavy skies and I went ashore, roused them out of bed, and got them on board. With luck we would round Ardnamurchan that day and make Tobermory in Mull. We should see they got to Oban in two days somehow.

This was more like the thing! The previous evening Maurice and I had got the six splitpins and the two holding-down bolts where they should be. I swung the flywheel and off went all fourteen horses to a splendid start. Up the anchor and we were under way. Now I felt happy. And Toshan Walsh was a sound woman to have on board, for she looked round about her and saw the sea in all the subtle varieties of that colour which blind people call leaden, and saw the land with the still houses and the still trees, and us going away from them, and the mountains hazed to an insubstantial pageant, and the islands opening, until she grew silent at the wonder thereof. And even Maurice himself admitted, listening to the engine, ‘I like her beat.’

‘Like her beat! If the barbarians of Kerry saw us now they would think it was the grand Day of Judgment.’

‘They mightn’t be far wrong,’ said he, and touched some wood.

We had no difficulty at all coming out, except for one anxious moment—the tide was full and the whole look of the entrance altered—in picking up the last pole. I knew we had to stand in round the hump of land that projects on the port side, but the hunt for the pole gave everyone some excitement. Then we found it and in due course opened out the Small Isles and encountered the long slow roll of the open sea.

The yachtsman at Arisaig had suggested my keeping her on the island of Muck for a bit and then wearing round until we picked up the Bo Faskadale light—a red buoy, which we must comfortably clear to port. Soon the Ardnamurchan Head lighthouse raised its thin distant finger, and wearing off Muck we put her on what we took to be those rocks at the northern point of Coll, called the Cairns of Coll. But look and spy as we would, we could not pick up the Bo Faskadale red buoy. The hunt for it became a game with charts, land marks, field glasses, and compass. A real amateur’s hunt, and with an ear for the engine, I enjoyed it.