green peak to the right, and make for it as straight as a die.
A few hundred yards away is a cottage where, if we are very polite and
ask prettily, the guid-wife will give us a cup of buttermilk, the Gaelic
substitute for afternoon tea. In a certain spot, which shall be
nameless, I should as soon think of drinking poison in glassfuls, but
after a stretch on the moors it tastes like nectar! Take my word for
it, and try!"

That was the first walk which Ron and Margot had ever taken over a
Scotch moor, and to the last day of their lives they remembered it with
joy. The air went to their heads so that they grew "fey," and sang, and
laughed, and teased each other like a couple of merry-hearted children,
while the Chieftain was the biggest child of the three.

At times he declared that he was tired out and must turn back, but
hardly were the words out of his mouth, than, lo, he was dancing an
impromptu hornpipe with astonishing nimbleness and dexterity! He took a
lively interest in all that his companions did and said, and did not
hesitate to put question after question in order to arrive at a fuller
understanding of any case in point; but London, and all that took place
in London, remained a forbidden topic. He was the Elgood of Elgood, and
they were "his bonnie men," and life outside the Highlands had ceased to
exist.

Margot was delighted that the little man should have a chance of seeing
Ronald in one of his lightest, most boyish moods, for from the
expression of his face she feared that he had not so far previously been
favourably impressed by the lad's personality. Now it was impossible
not to admire and laugh as Ron played imaginary bagpipes on the end of
his walking-stick, or droned out lugubrious ballads in imitation of a
strolling minstrel who had visited the inn the night before. The ballad
dramatised the circumstances of the moment: the perilous ascent, the
wandering of three strangers across the moor, the flowing bowl which was
to refresh and strengthen them for the return journey. Ron's knowledge
of the native dialect was so slight that he fell back upon the more
stately phraseology of the early English poets, introducing a strange
Scotch term now and again with irresistibly comic effect.

The two listeners cheered him on with bursts of delighted laughter,
while at an unexpected clever turn, or apt stringing together of words,
the Chieftain would clap his hands and caper with delight.

"Good! good!"