“Fill up your glass, Hugh, fill up your glass,” the Chieftain exhorted. “Yes, we had a disappointing day. However, we only just failed to get the finest stag in this part of the country. An historic animal really. The muckle hart of Ben Glass, Hugh.”

“By Jove, Donald, the muckle hart himself!”

“Yes, but the beggar slipped us. We had pretty nearly a four-mile crawl on our hands and knees, and some of the time on our tummies.”

“Chester crawled four miles on his tummy?” Carrie exclaimed incredulously.

“Like a good ’un,” Ben Nevis declared with enthusiasm. “Well, I must go and get into some dry clothes.”

He swallowed one more hefty dram and strode from the hall, his kilt clinging to him like the draperies of a Rhine maiden or Nereid.

The rain that started on that Monday fell heavily and almost incessantly for the next five days and not quite so heavily and somewhat less incessantly for another five days after that. For a time even the hardiest sportsman was deterred from activity, but nevertheless the time passed pleasantly enough. Kilwhillie went back to Kilwhillie House. James Buchanan was put in touch with his lawyers Messrs Macbeth, Macbeth and Macbean of Inverness, and the meticulous process of selling a landed estate in Scotland was set in motion. Carrie, who had felt guilty over Kilwhillie’s lunch, had suggested to her husband he should add another 2,500 dollars to the purchase price of Knocknacolly.

“But I’ve already added that, Carrie.”

“I know, Chester dear, but I’d feel so much happier if he had what he’d said to himself he would take, and that was eight thousand. That’s roughly forty thousand dollars, isn’t it?”

“Well, if it pleases you, it’s O.K. by me,” said Chester.

“Oh, Chester, you’re so big-hearted. But I do think Knocknacolly is worth forty thousand dollars.”

“It certainly is if it’s giving you so much pleasure.”

“Oh, it is, Chester. I can’t tell you what pleasure it’s going to give me. And when the architect comes I’ll have him pay particular attention to this room for your stags’ heads. Oh, and, Chester, I’d like to have a little runabout so that I can run over to Knocknacolly when I feel inclined.”

“A two-seater?”

Carrie hesitated. The temptation was strong.

“No; I think it had better be a four-seater,” she said, conquering it.

“I’m going into Inverness to-morrow. I’ll probably find there what you want.”

“Will I come with you, Chester?”

“No, don’t you bother, dear. I have a little business to attend to. Oh, by the way, which do you like best, purple or orange?”

“Purple or orange? What for, Chester? Neither suits me. Well, I suppose purple would, but I don’t want to think about purple for a few years yet.”

“Why not?”

“It’s so ageing.”