‘Belt up!’ I said, furious with myself to find that I was shaking. ‘If she needs to stay in the hotel —’
‘All right, all right. Message received and understood,’ he said. ‘Don’t get your underpants in a twist. It was only a suggestion.’
‘Then keep the next one to yourself,’ I shouted. Hera turned her back on me.
Carbridge picked himself up. ‘Well, really!’ he said, dusting the seat of his trousers. ‘No need for that, old boy, old boy.’ He made for the men’s dormitory, for which the students had already left the common-room. I suppose he had decided he wanted no part in a further rough-house.
Perth took me by the sleeve again and said, ‘We’re all a wee thing weary, I’m thinking. The laddie meant no harm. Ye’ll see it in perspective come the morn’s morn.’ Before going to bed, however, I insisted on having it out with Todd.
The party of four were off at eight the next day. Hera and I breakfasted together, but it was a silent meal. The weather had held up, after all, and I wished with all my heart that Carbridge and the others could have known that it would, and had held on their way instead of returning to the hostel. The warden was not very friendly when I collected our membership cards, so I guessed that some account of the happenings had leaked out, although nobody but the people concerned had been present at the time of my outburst.
Perth and the students had also gone out early and Hera and I were off by nine. The walk was by way of Strath Fillan through forest and across a river. Then we were out on the moors with the mountains hemming us in. As the road to Tyndrum began to rise, we could look back at Ben More and Stobinian, and as we looked ahead we had a view of Ben Challum before the track sloped downwards to a stream.
The Way climbed again after that and, as we had made good time since leaving Crianlarich, I warned Hera that we had better look out for Carbridge and his party, but when we got to the bridge on the River Fillan and had had a look at the ruins of St Fillan’s Chapel a bit further on, there was still no sign of them.
In a village called Clifton — after a property magnate who had the right to mine the lead which was discovered near the place at some time in the eighteenth century — we found a shop which stocked food, so we replenished our own stores before going on. As we reached Tyndrum, I looked up at the sky and decided that Carbridge had not been so far wrong the night before. ‘I’ll ask at the hotel whether they can have us here for a night.’
‘Oh, no, you won’t. We’re going to catch Carbridge and pass him without his knowing it. He can’t possibly be far in front of us now if he’s got poor Jane Minch hanging on to him. All we need is that short cut I mentioned.’
‘I had no idea you were so obstinate,’ I said.
‘I am not obstinate. I have made up my mind that we are going to get to Fort William before he does, that’s all. After that exhibition you made of yourself last night, the least you can do is to help me over racing him to the finish.’
‘I told him we were packing up at Kinlochleven,’ I said weakly. ‘I don’t know why he gets my goat to the extent he does. If he weren’t such a worm, perhaps his stupid talk and the liberties he tries to take with you wouldn’t rile me so much.’
‘It was you who took the liberties. You made me look an utter fool. Thank goodness that spotty little Minch girl wasn’t present. She might have thought you the big, bold hero.’
‘Freckles are not spots.’
‘Yes, they are. The other name for them is sunspots.’
I tried to laugh, but she had not finished, so I tried to divert her from her criticism of my conduct of the night before by quoting Shakespeare. ‘All right, they are sunspots,’ I said.
‘ “The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
These be rubies, fairy favours — ” ’
‘Oh, be quiet!’ she said impatiently. ‘What on earth induced you to behave like a jealous goat last night?’
‘You know as well as I do. I’m not prepared to stand by and watch one oaf trying to put an arm round you and listen to another oaf offering to take you to a hotel for the night.’
‘As for the first oaf, I could have managed him quite easily. I certainly didn’t need your protection. As for Todd — well, I noticed you didn’t try to choke the life out of him.’
‘He’s bigger than I am,’ I said.
At that her mood changed. She laughed. ‘I know what’s really the matter with you,’ she said. ‘It’s this enforced abstinence. However, we agreed on a celibate holiday and we’re sticking to it. I don’t suppose holding Jane Minch in your arms was much of a comfort, was it?’
‘You would be surprised,’ I said.
It was about half a dozen miles, or perhaps seven, from Tyndrum to Bridge of Orchy and we were following an old military road. It seemed easy going after some of the country we had passed through and we made good progress. We were not intending to break our journey at Bridge of Orchy anyway, but I still did not much like the look of the weather, although the view from the top of the hill had been fairly clear.
‘What are all those posts?’ asked Hera, after the road had descended from the hill.
‘Snow posts. Very handy guides in winter or if a Highland mist comes down.’ As though, by mentioning it, I had conjured it up, we had not reached the tiny settlement before a heavy mist blotted out everything except a short stretch of the road in front of us.
‘There’s a hotel at Bridge of Orchy,’ I said. ‘We’d better book in as soon as we get to it. If this mist means anything, we shall probably get rain, and I’m not walking in wet clothes if I can help it.’
‘Sugar baby!’
‘It’s you I’m thinking about.’
‘Yes,’ she said, to my surprise, ‘I really believe it was.’
As we approached Bridge of Orchy, the mist lifted and there were views which were not to be missed. We crossed a bridge and the railway came under the slopes of Beinn Doran on to an old road and then alongside a river. It was still easy walking and we loitered and I smoked while Hera gazed at the glen through which the river ran and the mountains which we were approaching.
We had spent so much time on this part of The Way that we decided to lunch at the Bridge of Orchy hotel before going on to Inveroran. The mist kept off, we had a fairly late and leisurely lunch and it was well past mid-afternoon by the time we took to The Way again and were headed for our overnight stop.
I took another look at the sky when we had left the hotel and did not much like what I saw, for the mountains were already beginning to be shrouded and I fancied that there was rain in the air. I began to wish that we had ended the day’s journey at Bridge of Orchy and felt that I ought to have insisted on this, but foolishly I had agreed to let Hera try her short cut. Anyway, it seemed more sensible to do the extra bit of walking on the one day and so reduce the next day’s stage to nine and a half miles instead of a dozen. Although Hera boasted of her fitness, I thought that mile after mile, day after day, was quite sufficient test of her capabilities.
For a long time that day our track had been running more or less beside the railway, but after Bridge of Orchy we knew we would lose both the railway and the main road. We expected to pick up the road at Kingshouse, for which we should be headed when we left Inveroran, but we would not see the railway again until we reached Fort William.
After about half an hour the mountains became nothing but looming, shadowy masses, amorphous giants, spectral, although not, so far, menacing. All the same, I began to appreciate the stories current in the Highlands of spooky manifestations and was only too willing to believe in witches, terrifying water-horses and all the rest of the legends and old wives’ tales.