“I don’t want to call myself Knocknacolly,” Chester Royde replied, a little huffily. “Can’t I ask a perfectly good question without being accused of wanting to change my name?”

Kilwhillie tried to reassure himself by hanging on to his moustache, but he felt that the prospect of a successful sale had clouded over since they entered Glenbore. Indeed he felt inclined to give up the business altogether and instead of taking the Roydes to Knocknacolly to take them to Kilwhillie House and show them his relics of the ’Fifteen and the ’Forty-five.

Luckily Ben Nevis himself had made up his mind to sell Knocknacolly at a good price, and when Kilwhillie asked if they would not like to turn aside and see his Jacobite relics he condemned the notion as ridiculous.

“You can show our friends Kilwhillie House another day, Hugh. If we’re going to be back in Glenbogle for lunch, we have our time cut out.”

Presently the car turned off to the left and began to climb among majestic scenery. Then it dipped down again on a corkscrew descent, crossed a small stream and went on for five miles over as desolate a stretch of level moorland as might be found in all Scotland, at the end of which on a slight elevation surrounded by dense plantations of Scots firs and backed by a savage range of bens stood Knocknacolly Lodge like a stained and faded frontispiece to a novel by Sir Walter Scott.

“Why, I think it’s perfectly gorgeous,” Carrie exclaimed. “It’s the house I’ve prayed for all my life.”

Kilwhillie had received two sharp rebuffs from women in his day. He believed himself asbestos where the female sex was concerned. Yet at that moment he was on the verge of kneeling down in the Daimler and kissing the hem of Carrie’s extremely smart skirt.

“Knew you’d like it,” Ben Nevis shouted exultantly. “It’s the best twelve-head forest in Inverness-shire, not to mention quite a pretty little grouse moor on your doorstep as you might say.”