‘It’s all a lot of nonsense, I expect,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and look at the old canal.’
I saw that it would be useless for a time to ask any questions, but I guessed that she would come out with something later on. I spent a comfortable night, although I had no luck, as I say, with the sleeping arrangements because I had booked us in separately again at Hera’s insistence. I hoped she now regretted this as much as I did, but, short of telling them at the desk that we had got married since I had made the booking, there was nothing to be done about it.
We breakfasted at eight next day and went back to join The Way, but midway through the stop we made for our elevenses Hera came up with one of those bright ideas which might seem all right at the time, but end in disaster later.
‘You’ve got maps, haven’t you?’ she said.
‘Sure. Why?’ I asked, scenting danger.
‘When we get to Crianlarich we’ll study the map,’ said the temptress. ‘There might be a short cut we could take. So long as we don’t use public transport, nothing was said about having to keep strictly to The Way, was it?’
‘No. but I didn’t accept any bets and one doesn’t take short cuts in this sort of country unless one is a fool or has been born and brought up here.’
‘Oh, we won’t take a short cut unless it’s marked on the map,’ she said.
‘Well, it won’t be. The Way would follow it if it were.’
‘We’ll see,’ she said. Again, I did not argue. There were nearly seven miles to cover before we reached Crianlarich and I thought she would have forgotten about short cuts by the time we got there.
From Inverarnan to Crianlarich we were in Glen Falloch and had left Loch Lomond behind. We finished on the old military road constructed, I suppose, by Wade, who opened up parts of the Highlands in this way to assist in what was known as their pacification. This meant he had to move his troops about to get to the trouble spots during and after the Jacobite risings.
It was when we had left the river we had been following and were getting near our destination that we caught up with the first of Carbridge’s off-loadings. These were Perth and the students. One could not call them stragglers, since they had fallen behind only in order to get on with the job they had come to do. They were all busy with notebooks, maps, chisels and their little geological hammers and told us that they were having a great time and had booked beds at the youth hostel in Crianlarich, where they hoped to see us again.
We gave them our good wishes and asked how far ahead the rest of the party would be. It turned out that they had all booked in at the hostel, but Carbridge might have decided to push on towards Tyndrum without stopping in Crianlarich.
‘He must be mad,’ said Hera. ‘The hostel at Crianlarich is the last one on The Way until he gets to Fort William.’
‘He talked of camping and how much time they would save that way because they would be striking camp at the crack of dawn each day. I’m thinking we delayed the rest of them an unco’ time on Inchcailloch and he is impatient to be pushing on. Ye’ll mind ye of the lassies Green and Parks?‘ said Perth.
‘Would those be Rhoda and Tansy?’ I asked.
‘The same. They canna thole yon man Carbridge, I’ll be thinking, and they are to leave the rest of us and take to the train, but whether they will then go on to Fort William I dinna ken.’
‘When did they leave the party?’
‘They are bookit in at Crianlarich the night, sensible lassies, so we’ll meet up wi’ them there.’
‘We’ll meet them there, too, and you and the students, of course.’
‘Aye. We can do wi’ a bed the night, for we shall be into the hills the morn, and that may be hard going for the lassies, wi’ the digging and scraping and all.’
‘Does that mean you will spend more than tomorrow prospecting around these parts?’
‘We’re biding three nights. The students are awfu’ keen and we’re a wee thing weary o’yon man Carbridge and his haverings.’
‘We soon got bored with him, too. I don’t know much about geology, so what are the students actually looking for in these parts?’
‘We didna let on to the rest of them, but you and Miss Camden are sensible bodies, so I’ll tell ye. Ye’ll mind ye of a theory that, awa’ back in time, the geography of the world was vastly different from the way it is today? Well, what these laddies and lassies are after is to match the American dinosaurs wi’ bones found over on this side. There is muckle talk o’ the Cretaceous period and its giant sauropods — ’
‘Titanosaurus from Argentina,’ I said. ‘Go back to the Jurassic and we get Brachiosaurus, who was also four- footed, but during the Cretaceous time we also get Tyrannosaurus. He seems to have walked upright on massive hind legs and his forelegs were tiny and can’t have been of much use for any practical purpose. The Americans found a good specimen of this intimidating chap in Montana, I believe, and the Russians found another one in Mongolia.’
‘I thought ye kenned nothing about geology.’
‘Oh, everybody is interested in dinosaurs.’ We wished the working party luck again, said we would see them at the hostel supper and that we were leaving after next morning’s breakfast.
‘We must get provisions in Crianlarich if we are going to take a short cut across country,’ said Hera, when we came in sight of the hostel.
‘There are not going to be any short cuts. It’s crazy to think of such a thing,’ I said in my firmest tones.
‘We shall see,’ she said again, putting out her tongue at me.
The hostel was in a turning off the Tarbet-Crianlarich road and, further on, the turning led to the road between Tyndrum and Killin. A disused railway line was just beyond it.
