“That’s bully,” said Chester Royde in a tone of the deepest satisfaction. “I’m crazy about the Highlands, Kilwhillie. I used to laugh at Carrie, but I tell you I’ve been bitten by this Highland bug myself. Now, see here, let me get this right, old man. Provided I stick to plain colours I’m O.K.? I mean to say purple, blue, green, anything I like so long as I keep off lines and checks and any kind of pattern?”

“It’s unusual, of course, but …”

“I don’t give a darn about it being unusual provided I’m not muscling in on somebody else’s property.”

“You certainly wouldn’t be doing that.”

“That’s all I wanted to know. I mean to say, when I was in Canada I was adopted into the Carroway tribe of Indians with the name of Butting Moose. That’s Chester Royde Jr. among the Carroways, and that’s the way I want to feel in the Highlands. The romance of the whole business has gotten a hold of me, Kilwhillie. I aim to buy a place up here.”

Kilwhillie’s faded eyes were lighted up with that strange light which never was on sea or land, but is only to be seen in the eyes of a landed proprietor in the Highlands who hopes he has found a buyer for an overtaxed forest of twelve heads and a shooting-lodge that looks like a bunch of tarnished pepper-pots.

“I could probably help you with my advice over that,” he murmured. “I think I know the kind of place you want. When you’ve definitely made up your mind let me know. And if I may venture to offer a word of advice, don’t talk about it till you have. Otherwise you’ll be pestered with all sorts of shooting-properties you don’t want to waste time looking at. I think Miss Royde’s enjoying it up here with us.”

“Oh, Myrtle’s enjoying herself fine.”

Myrtle Royde was seated between the two beefy sons of Ben Nevis—Murdoch the sailor and Iain the undergraduate. They, like their sisters Mary and Catriona, had inherited size and weight from their mother; they could indeed be called massive, particularly Iain, who was the heaviest Five that ever rowed in the Trinity Hall boat. It had been the impressive showing they made in the kilt which had prompted Chester Royde’s emulation more than the superb appearance of Ben Nevis himself upon his native heath, with which he would probably never have dreamed of competing.