“Wait a minute. I’ll have you say that again when I’ve found the words in my book. I’ve got it; uamh, cave. What’s calf? I’ve got it. Laogh. Genitive, laoigh. Now say it again, will you?”

The gaunt man did so. Carrie tried to imitate him, and the dog growled fiercely, receiving a blow on the haunches from his master’s cromag and a Gaelic oath.

“You’re saying it very well, Mistress Royde. It’s very difficult to say well.”

“You didn’t seem to think much of my Gaelic pronunciation when I said it was warm, and that’s a darned sight easier to say than uaimh na laoigh.”

“Will we be going along there now?”

Carrie shook her head.

“Why, no, I don’t think I’ll go there this afternoon. I’ll go right along back to the Castle. You can carry that tent for me,” she added quickly, for it occurred to her that if she left him here the keeper and his dog might go and fix Alan Macmillan with their wall-eyes. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Neil Maclennan. I hope you’ll make a complaint about me to Ben Nevis, mistress.”

“You do?”

“Yes. He’ll be hearing then what an eye I’m keeping on me for these hikers and campers and he’ll be very pleased. I’m sure of that. Och, yes, he’ll be very pleased indeed.”

“Oh, you think he’d like to hear you’d handed over one of his guests to that lovely-looking dog of yours. What’s his name?”

“Smeorach.”

Carrie searched the vocabulary of Gaelic Without Tears.

“But that means ‘thrush.’ That’s a bird. What a queer sort of a name to give a savage animal like that!”

“Och, he’s not at all savage.”

“Oh, he’s not?”

“No, no; he’s very gentle. Very kind.”

“That shows what very wrong ideas we can get into our heads about animals. But don’t worry, Neil, I’ll tell Ben Nevis that Smeorach and you together are the most savage things I’ve seen in this part of the world.”

The gaunt man looked grateful.

“He’s a very fine gentleman is Ben Nevis,” he said fervidly.

“He’s all that, and then some,” Carrie agreed. “I suppose you’d lay down your life for him?”

The gaunt man stopped, dropped the tent upon the path, and turned round to Carrie with a puzzled expression.

“Lay down my life for him?” he repeated. “Was it die for him you were wanting to say?”

“That’s right,” Carrie said encouragingly.