‘There’s one thing you’ve got to do for me,’ I said.  ’I can’t go into inns and shops, but I can’t do without food.  I see from the map there’s a town about six miles on.  Go there and buy me anything that’s tinned—­biscuits and tongue and sardines, and a couple of bottles of whisky if you can get them.  This may be a long job, so buy plenty.’

‘Whaur’ll I put them?’ was his only question.

We fixed on a cache, a hundred yards from the highway in a place where two ridges of hill enclosed the view so that only a short bit of road was visible.

‘I’ll get back to the Kyle,’ he told me, ’and a’body there kens Andra Amos, if ye should find a way of sendin’ a message or comin’ yourself.  Oh, and I’ve got a word to ye from a lady that we ken of.  She says, the sooner ye’re back in Vawnity Fair the better she’ll be pleased, always provided ye’ve got over the Hill Difficulty.’

A smile screwed up his old face and he waved his whip in farewell.  I interpreted Mary’s message as an incitement to speed, but I could not make the pace.  That was Gresson’s business.  I think I was a little nettled, till I cheered myself by another interpretation.  She might be anxious for my safety, she might want to see me again, anyhow the mere sending of the message showed I was not forgotten.  I was in a pleasant muse as I breasted the hill, keeping discreetly in the cover of the many gullies.  At the top I looked down on Ranna and the sea.

There lay the Tobermory busy unloading.  It would be some time, no doubt, before Gresson could leave.  There was no row-boat in the channel yet, and I might have to wait hours.  I settled myself snugly between two rocks, where I could not be seen, and where I had a clear view of the sea and shore.  But presently I found that I wanted some long heather to make a couch, and I emerged to get some.  I had not raised my head for a second when I flopped down again.  For I had a neighbour on the hill-top.

He was about two hundred yards off, just reaching the crest, and, unlike me, walking quite openly.  His eyes were on Ranna, so he did not notice me, but from my cover I scanned every line of him.  He looked an ordinary countryman, wearing badly cut, baggy knickerbockers of the kind that gillies affect.  He had a face like a Portuguese Jew, but I had seen that type before among people with Highland names; they might be Jews or not, but they could speak Gaelic.  Presently he disappeared.  He had followed my example and selected a hiding-place.

It was a clear, hot day, but very pleasant in that airy place.  Good scents came up from the sea, the heather was warm and fragrant, bees droned about, and stray seagulls swept the ridge with their wings.  I took a look now and then towards my neighbour, but he was deep in his hidey-hole.  Most of the time I kept my glasses on Ranna, and watched the doings of the Tobermory.  She was tied up at the jetty, but seemed in no hurry to unload.  I watched