But apparently by now the hikers had said what they had to say. They had hoisted their knapsacks and camping equipment and with bowed backs they were moving off across the courtyard toward the gates.

Few sights offer to the tender-hearted observer so poignant an illustration of man’s weary pilgrimage through this vale of tears as that of hikers overloaded with equipment moving from their camping-ground to the nearest railway-station at the end of a holiday. Perhaps the only rival among the spectacles of human misery is that of hikers overloaded with equipment streaming out of a railway-station toward their camping-ground at the beginning of a holiday.

“Poor things,” sighed Mrs MacDonald. “They do look so tired.”

“Poor things?” her husband echoed wrathfully. “They’ll look a good deal more tired before I’ve done with them. But come along, let’s finish our lunch first.”

“Donald, what are you proposing to do now?”

“I’m going to keep them on the move with the lorry all the way down Glenbogle,” the Chieftain declared, and the expression upon his countenance was the expression of a Caligula gloating over the prospect of some gladiatorial enormity.

“Then do we give a miss this afternoon to these Scottish Nationalists?” Chester Royde asked. The question was not in fact prompted by blood-lust, but by the new owner of Knocknacolly’s desire to get a closer view of the Macmillan and Buchanan tartan, the glimpse of which he had caught from the Daimler having inspired him with a greater respect than ever for the possibilities of Highland dress.

“Oh, we can deal with those brutes to-morrow,” said Ben Nevis. “Or the next day.”

“I hope not the next day,” said Mr Fletcher gently. “The next day is Sunday.”

Carrie and Myrtle looked at one another. Both of them were thinking what a good day that would be to visit the poet.

Chapter 9

THE CAVE OF THE CALF

OF THE WAY in which Ben Nevis with a motorized column consisting of the lorry, the Daimler, Kilwhillie’s seven-year-old Austin, and Murdoch MacDonald’s two-seater harried those sixteen hikers for eight miles down Glenbogle the victims shall tell presently. It is enough at this point to say that he returned from the operation in boisterous good-humour and, much to the relief of Carrie and Myrtle, seemed to have forgotten about the Scottish Nationalists in the excitement of planning to shoot the Knocknacolly moors next day.

“Mind you, it’s not for the birds you’ve bought Knocknacolly, Royde. It’s for the stalking,” he warned the new proprietor. “You’ve not killed your first stag yet. I hope you’re going to do that next week So you mustn’t expect the birds we should have had on Drumcockie if they hadn’t been scared by those disgusting hikers.”