I told him that after the war, every acre of British soil would have to be used for the men that had earned the right to it.  But that did not comfort him.  He was not thinking about the land itself, but about the men who had been driven from it fifty years before.  His desire was not for reform, but for restitution, and that was past the power of any Government.  I went to bed in the loft in a sad, reflective mood, considering how in speeding our newfangled plough we must break down a multitude of molehills and how desirable and unreplaceable was the life of the moles.

In brisk, shining weather, with a wind from the south-east, we put off next morning.  In front was a brown line of low hills, and behind them, a little to the north, that black toothcomb of mountain range which I had seen the day before from the Arisaig ridge.

‘That is the Coolin,’ said the fisherman.  ’It is a bad place where even the deer cannot go.  But all the rest of Skye wass the fine land for black cattle.’

As we neared the coast, he pointed out many places.  ’Look there, Sir, in that glen.  I haf seen six cot houses smoking there, and now there is not any left.  There were three men of my own name had crofts on the machars beyond the point, and if you go there you will only find the marks of their bit gardens.  You will know the place by the gean trees.’

When he put me ashore in a sandy bay between green ridges of bracken, he was still harping upon the past.  I got him to take a pound—­for the boat and not for the night’s hospitality, for he would have beaten me with an oar if I had suggested that.  The last I saw of him, as I turned round at the top of the hill, he had still his sail down, and was gazing at the lands which had once been full of human dwellings and now were desolate.

I kept for a while along the ridge, with the Sound of Sleat on my right, and beyond it the high hills of Knoydart and Kintail.  I was watching for the Tobermory, but saw no sign of her.  A steamer put out from Mallaig, and there were several drifters crawling up the channel and once I saw the white ensign and a destroyer bustled northward, leaving a cloud of black smoke in her wake.  Then, after consulting the map, I struck across country, still keeping the higher ground, but, except at odd minutes, being out of sight of the sea.  I concluded that my business was to get to the latitude of Ranna without wasting time.

So soon as I changed my course I had the Coolin for company.  Mountains have always been a craze of mine, and the blackness and mystery of those grim peaks went to my head.  I forgot all about Fosse Manor and the Cotswolds.  I forgot, too, what had been my chief feeling since I left Glasgow, a sense of the absurdity of my mission.  It had all seemed too far-fetched and whimsical.  I was running apparently no great personal risk, and I had always the unpleasing fear that Blenkiron might have been too clever and that the whole thing might be a mare’s