So the rest, who had dropped down on the grass to rest after their long walk, climbed the narrow, steep stone stairway and emerged on the ledge.
As Babbie had said, it was “great” up there. The castle stood on a promontory at the mouth of a beautiful loch—which, as the girls had already discovered on their way up to Oban, often means simply an arm of the sea, of which, owing to the irregularity of the coastline, there are a great many in Scotland. You could see far up the loch in one direction and out to the open sea in the other, and in the background loomed great, mist-shrouded peaks, wild and terrible, with stretches of lonely moorland in the nearer distance.
“COME UP, ALL OF YOU”
“What is this?” asked Babe, pointing to a rusty iron standard fastened to the top of the castle’s sea-wall.
“That’s a beacon-holder,” Mr. Dwight told her. “In the good old days of the Border Wars, this castle used to be a station in the chain of signal fires. They fastened a bundle of fagots into that frame and set them on fire, and the chief in the castle over there on one of those purple islands, and the clan gathered on the slope of Ben Cruachan, that highest peak up at the head of the loch, saw the fire, and knew what it meant.”
“What did it mean?” demanded Babe.
“Different things at different times,” explained Mr. Dwight, “but generally death and pillage for somebody.”
Babbie gave a little sigh of satisfaction. “How lovely! I accept my castle, Madeline, with many thanks. I wish it had some rooms down-stairs to explore, and a dungeon, but it’s very nice just as it is. It’s so absolutely unspoiled.”
“It certainly doesn’t look much like that dreadful cottage at Ayr,” laughed Betty. “Did you go to Ayr, Mr. Morton?”