“This is assault and battery,” protested Mr Prew. “I call on all you boys and girls to observe what this gentleman is doing. He is assaulting me. And please note I am making no resistance whatever. May I ask what is the meaning of this outrage?”

The sight of Mr Prew’s enquiring face turned round with some difficulty owing to the grip upon his shirt-collar seemed to rouse Ben Nevis to fresh fury, and he shook him more violently than ever.

“I’ll teach you to run amok among my birds. I’ll teach you to camp out round one of my notice-boards forbidding camping. I’ll teach you to light fires in the heather.”

By this time the shaker and the shaken were both so much out of breath that neither could speak, and the only sound that broke the heathery silence of the braes of Strathdiddle was the voice of a crooner coming from the portable wireless. Even those who disapprove of Mac ’ic Eachainn’s assault upon Mr Prew will not blame him for dropping Mr Prew and giving the crooner the contents of his gun’s two barrels.

“Look here, that’s my portable,” a tall pink-faced young man expostulated. Whereupon Ben Nevis seized him by the front of his mauve shirt and shook him as violently as he had shaken Mr Prew. The young woman with the melting knees screamed in a rage and banged away at Ben Nevis with her hiker’s staff. Gatriona MacDonald caught hold of her by the back of her shorts and put a hefty arm round her neck. There was a general melee, but the male hikers, severely handicapped by the attempts of the female hikers to help them, were no match for Clan Donald.

“What will we do with them, Ben Nevis?” Duncan asked when the invaders were disarmed and surrounded.

“Bring them along to Ballochy, and I’ll send the lorry for them when we get back to the Castle. You want to camp on my land, do you?” he snarled at Mr Prew. “Very well, then you shall camp in the dungeons of Glenbogle Castle and see how you like that.”

“This is going to be a serious matter for you, Mr MacDonald,” said the Secretary of the N.U.H., his prim voice trembling with indignation, “for I presume you are the Mr MacDonald who owns this land.”

Mac ’ic Eachainn turned away with a look of utter disgust. A gardener would as soon think of arguing with a slug as he would with Sydney Prew.

Chapter 3

ANCESTRAL VOICES

WHILE SUCH STIRRING events were happening on Drumcockie moor and the braes of Strathdiddle, Mrs Chester Royde Jr. was asleep on that green knoll in the perfumed silence of Glenbristle.