weeks. Och, that was a time! My son’s friends, too, not folk of my own choosing. One of them was the laird of Tannasgan. Did you ever hear of Tannasgan?’
‘No, I never did. Is it far from here?’
‘Not so far. It’s a wee island in a loch, a piece east of Tigh-Osda, ay, and Freagair. You will have passed it on your way here. The laird is a strange body and has not a very good name in these parts, but my son had had businessdealings with him and invited him to stay a couple of nights to finish discussing the details. I did not take to the laird at all, and there was I stuck with the poor man for a fortnight!’
‘Talking of Freagair,’ said Laura, ‘if I’m to get there tonight I shall have to leave pretty soon, I’m afraid.’
‘Ay, you’ll not want to travel a single-track road in the dark. You’ll not change your mind and bide here the night?’
‘It’s very kind of you, but I booked a room, so I’d better get back, I think. I
‘You must persuade Dame Beatrice to bring you again before you both go back to London.’
‘I most certainly will.’
They strolled on, past flowering shrubs and then, taking a steep little side-path, came upon an enormous and impressive bare rock.
‘Torridon red sandstone,’ said Mrs Stewart. ‘If you’ll look that way across the bay you will see the Torridon mountains.’
They returned by a detour to the house to collect Laura’s bag and install her in the hired car. It was still broad daylight, but there was cloud coming up and Ben Caraid, never a friendly mountain, was looking ominous.
‘It’s going to rain,’ said Laura.
‘Ay, but you’ll be well on your way before that. I wish you had been able to see the herbaceous border at its best, but that’s not until July. The man I was telling you about, the laird of Tannasgan, gave me some rock plants, but I think it was my son’s idea that he should, for I don’t think the chiel would have thought of it for himself.’
They parted with thanks on the one side and a repetition of the invitation to ‘come again and bring Dame Beatrice with you’ on the other, and then Laura drove away from Garadh and followed the only road, the coast road, back through Baile to the small resort of Crioch. Here she pulled in, got out of the car and took a stroll along the cliff-top. There were very few people about, although a hotel of moderate size faced the sea. The tide was out and the sands were wet and shining, broken here and there by seaweed-covered rocks humped like glistening saurians lazily washed by tiny waves. It was a charming place.
Out to sea, and barely visible except to those who, like Laura, knew it was there, lay the Hebridean island of Lewis and, south-west and a great deal nearer, she could see the unmistakable outline of the northern end of Skye. She would have liked to descend the cliff by the rough steps which led to the sands, but gathering cloud and a glance at her wristwatch warned her that time was pressing, so she returned to the car and drove inland towards the road which ran alongside the waters of Coig Eich, the Loch of the Five Horses, claimed (locally) to be the loveliest in Scotland. The name and the claim she had received from Mrs Stewart.
The way, before she reached the loch in its beautiful valley, wound upwards through pine-woods. Although here not strictly, perhaps, a single-track road, it was extremely narrow and the bends followed one another for mile after mile, so that it was unsafe to drive at any sort of speed. Alongside the water it was easier going, but the loch was often screened from the car by trees and on the opposite side of the road there were high banks, more trees and some bracken. It reminded Laura a little of the road alongside Loch Lomond, but it was lonelier, wilder and narrower.
Once past the loch, the view became more open, although the road itself was still narrow. Here Laura became aware that the fine weather was at an end and the clouds had won. The mountains she could see in front and to the right of her were standing starkly against a lowering sky and almost at once it began to rain. The landscape swam in a green haze and soon she was keeping to a road sheeted in the most relentless down-pour. She dared not pull up, for she was by this time on a single-track stretched between high hills on the one hand and the shallow river, beyond which ran the single-line railway, on the other, so that passing-places could not be obstructed by a stationary car.
At last she approached the hydro-electric power station with its pipe-lines. The rain eased off a little and she was able to see that the little river had been diverted and the small, ugly loch into which it flowed had been turned into an even uglier reservoir. Then the rain came down again and blotted out everything. Fortunately Laura met nothing on the road until she reached Tigh-Osda, the little hamlet with a railway station. It also possesed an hotel. At this, most thankfully, she pulled up, deciding to try to get a room there for the night and go on to Freagair in the morning. She wished she had not stopped at Crioch, or else that she had left Garadh a little earlier.
Drawn up outside the hostelry was an empty estate-wagon, and just inside the covered entrance to the station stood a man and woman whose resigned expressions, as they stared gloomily at the rain, caused Laura to suppose them the owners of the vehicle. She got out of her own car and darted into the inn, but she had only time to wipe her shoes on the mat before a man’s voice said:
‘Losh! You’ve a car!’
Laura turned and saw the man who had made one of the desolate-looking pair in the station entrance.
‘Do you mean you’ve broken down?’ she asked.
‘Do I not! And not a mechanic or a garage this side of Freagair! I suppose you couldn’t give my wife a lift home? I’d be eternally grateful if you could. You see, we’ve had a day out together and left the bairn with the baby-sitter. We promised faithfully to free the lassie by seven o’clock and it’s a quarter to seven now. She lives in a wee clachan about two miles from our house, but, of course, she won’t leave the wean until my wife gets in. It’s ten miles from here and my wife isn’t able to walk so far, especially in this awful weather. I’d go myself, but I
‘All right,’ said Laura, ‘but I’ll just need to reserve a room here first’
‘No, no,’ said the man. ‘It’s an awful poor sort of place. My wife will gladly see you taken care of at our house for the night if you’ll just run her along there. I’m much obliged to you for your kindness.’
Laura went back to her car and in a moment the wife had joined her.
‘It’s awful good of you,’ she said. ‘We telephoned Freagair, but there’s only the one garage there and they said
