A cloud of midges drove us half frantic and we climbed higher to escape them, though we carried them with us, through heather two foot long, over screes and gravel slides. We were soaked to the skin long before we discovered the cave, beneath a bulge of cliff. It was not strictly a cave. An immense slab of rock had fallen from the precipice. At the foot of the cliff it tumbled inwards to lean against the parent mass from which it broke away, making a long narrow tent open at both ends. Rubble had accumulated along the ridge. Heather took hold in it, and tough grass interspersed with tiny rowan trees wove a matted thatch which kept out the rain. It was dark and cold in the cave but since we had found what we were searching for we were perversely determined to make use of it in spite of the fact that we would have been warmer, and could not have become wetter, in the open.

The storm passed and we crawled out of the cave to sun ourselves and view the scene.

‘Would this be one of Prince Charlie’s caves?’ Terry wanted to know.

‘He passed this way to Benalder,’ I told her, ‘so no doubt it would be a Prince Charlie cave if people knew about it.’

‘But why don’t people know?’ she continued. ‘I’m sure there are dozens of places far more remote and wild than this and you can scarcely get near them for hikers and sightseers.’

‘No one comes this way,’ I explained, ‘not even a gamekeeper. There’s very little game; too many ravens and foxes and wild cats in this tangle of rock, and eagles from Benalder hunt here. Look, over there, under the Farrow, you can see the head of the Durc, where the eagles nest. Besides, it’s a sort of dead corner with narrow angles of half a dozen moors and forests meeting. Each angle by itself is too small to be worth shooting. As for hikers, there’s nothing majestic or romantic here, nothing but empty desolation.’

‘I like it,’ she declared. ‘Well, we have our cave in No Man’s Land, Hugh. What a place to hide in! like the Macgregors had, for desperate outlaws!’

‘In summer,’ I agreed. ‘What are you looking for?’

‘Things. Rock-drawings and flint arrow-heads.’

‘Fox’s dung more likely, and stinking bones.’

‘Don’t be cruel, Hugh,’ she retorted. ‘Now if you walled up one end the cave would be very snug. I’m sure people have lived in much worse places.’

‘What food would there be?’ I asked scornfully. ‘You can’t grow things here. What about the snowdrift? Were you thinking of flitting up here, Terry?’