“Yes, it was extremely selfish of Kilwhillie, As you know, Mr Fletcher, nobody is more grateful than I am to Hugh Cameron for his devotion to Donald, but on this occasion I think he made his devotion an excuse to indulge his own Highland intolerance. However, that’s beside the point at the moment. Where I want your help is in trying to persuade these people to take the business in good part. I have the keys of the dungeons, but I do not want to unlock the prisoners myself because I do not want to give the impression that there has been the slightest disagreement between myself and Donald. Therefore I am enlisting your help, Mr Fletcher. I want you to do the actual unlocking, or rather as I know the locks are very stiff I’ll tell Duncan to do the actual unlocking, but I want you to let the prisoners know that they are free. I’m arranging with Mrs Parsall to give them supper in the old dining-hall, and afterwards the lorry can take them back to the nearest point in the road to their camp.”

“But suppose they refuse to accept your hospitality, Mrs MacDonald? If they are bent on some form of retaliatory action in the shape of a lawsuit against Ben Nevis they might consider it prejudicial to their case to eat, drink and make merry with an enemy.”

“That is exactly what I fear may happen, and I am relying on your ability to put before them the Christian point of view. I won’t venture to suggest what line you take. You will know far better than myself how to present that side. You’ve always been so tactful about religion and never rammed it down the children’s throats ever since you came to live at Glenbogle. I do feel that you are the only person who can hope to adjust this unfortunate affair.”

The chaplain looked a little doubtful.

“I must confess I’m not as confident as I should wish to be of influencing this motley gathering. I fear that all this hiking is closely bound up with the new paganism which is such a distressing feature of contemporary life. The clergyman quâ clergyman merely represents to these young people an old-fashioned person wearing too many stuffy clothes. Some of my fellow-clergy have tried to keep pace with modernity by holding special hikers’ services at convenient hours. The vicar of a church on the outskirts of London went so far as to conduct a breezy little service every Sunday at a convenient hour in a surplice and black corduroy shorts. He received for a while some publicity in the popular Press as the Hikers’ Parson, but I should surmise any success he may have attained owed more to the itch of curiosity than the urge of religion.”