“Och, yes, Mr Royde, the incident was well known at the time all round about Strathdiddle and Glenbogle. I’ve heard my grandfather tell about it many a time.”

“I believe she’s still moving around and up to her tricks. I believe it was her you saw sitting up there on the top of Drumstickit.”

“But it had horns, Mr Royde. I saw them with my spyglass.”

“Hasn’t the Devil got horns?”

“Och, never say such things, Mr Royde. You’re not telling me it was Satan himself I saw sitting up there on Drumstickit this morning. That’s a terribly fancy to put into a man’s head.”

“Well, I leave it to you, Duncan. It was either the witch or her master the Devil. You can choose between them.”

“Ach, no, Mr Royde, it was the great stag himself, right enough. I know the antlers on him as well as I know my own two hands. It was unlucky he would take it into his head to go away like that. But never fear, Mr Royde, I’ll come for you one morning and we’ll go for a stag together. Just you and I. We were too noisy to-day?”

“You’re not saying I’m too noisy, are you?” the Chieftain asked.

The old man stroked his superb beard judicially.

“Och, yes, you’re too noisy altogether, Ben Nevis. You’ve always been the same since you were a bairn. You’d make more noise than twenty buzzards before you were five years old. Screaming about the place, you would be, och, yes, screaming and shrieking and whistling.”

“Well, I don’t scream about the place now.”

“No, you don’t scream nowadays, Ben Nevis. But you talk twice as loud as anybody else. You can’t help it. You don’t know you talk so loud.”

“Are you seriously trying to tell me my voice frightened that stag?”

“Ach, I don’t know. It’s impossible to say what frightened it, but I’d like to take Mr Royde out by himself. He’s had a very disappointing day.”

“Yes, I wish we’d gone after those Scottish Nationalists now,” Ben Nevis spluttered.

Then he fell into a moody silence as the rain managed mysteriously to come down harder than ever. They had still two hours of hard walking before they reached the road where the car was waiting for them.

Chapter 11

PEATY WATER

THE STALK AFTER the muckle hart of Ben Glass was repeated back in Glenbogle by Carrie and Myrtle Royde, but much more successfully, for they tracked their quarry to his lair before the heavy rain began.