So I spent that night between clean sheets, and ate a Christian breakfast, and was given my host’s car to set me a bit on the road.  I dismissed it after half a dozen miles, and, following the map, struck over the hills to the west.  About midday I topped a ridge, and beheld the Sound of Sleat shining beneath me.  There were other things in the landscape.  In the valley on the right a long goods train was crawling on the Mallaig railway.  And across the strip of sea, like some fortress of the old gods, rose the dark bastions and turrets of the hills of Skye.

CHAPTER SIX

The Skirts of the Coolin

Obviously I must keep away from the railway.  If the police were after me in Morvern, that line would be warned, for it was a barrier I must cross if I were to go farther north.  I observed from the map that it turned up the coast, and concluded that the place for me to make for was the shore south of that turn, where Heaven might send me some luck in the boat line.  For I was pretty certain that every porter and station-master on that tin-pot outfit was anxious to make better acquaintance with my humble self.

I lunched off the sandwiches the Broadburys had given me, and in the bright afternoon made my way down the hill, crossed at the foot of a small fresh-water lochan, and pursued the issuing stream through midge-infested woods of hazels to its junction with the sea.  It was rough going, but very pleasant, and I fell into the same mood of idle contentment that I had enjoyed the previous morning.  I never met a soul.  Sometimes a roe deer broke out of the covert, or an old blackcock startled me with his scolding.  The place was bright with heather, still in its first bloom, and smelt better than the myrrh of Arabia.  It was a blessed glen, and I was as happy as a king, till I began to feel the coming of hunger, and reflected that the Lord alone knew when I might get a meal.  I had still some chocolate and biscuits, but I wanted something substantial.

The distance was greater than I thought, and it was already twilight when I reached the coast.  The shore was open and desolate—­great banks of pebbles to which straggled alders and hazels from the hillside scrub.  But as I marched northward and turned a little point of land I saw before me in a crook of the bay a smoking cottage.  And, plodding along by the water’s edge, was the bent figure of a man, laden with nets and lobster pots.  Also, beached on the shingle was a boat.

I quickened my pace and overtook the fisherman.  He was an old man with a ragged grey beard, and his rig was seaman’s boots and a much-darned blue jersey.  He was deaf, and did not hear me when I hailed him.  When he caught sight of me he never stopped, though he very solemnly returned my good evening.  I fell into step with him, and in his silent company reached the cottage.

He halted before the door and unslung his burdens.  The place was a two-roomed building with a roof of thatch, and the walls all grown over with a yellow-flowered creeper.  When he had straightened his back, he looked seaward and at the sky, as if to prospect the weather.  Then he turned on me his gentle, absorbed eyes.  ’It will haf been a fine day, sir.  Wass you seeking the road to anywhere?’