"Yes," the man said, "that's just four mile at the back of the hill beyond. Perhaps you'll know the country?" Grant thought it best to disclaim any knowledge of the district. "Well, there's a wee village the other side, on Loch Finley, but you're better here. It's a wee poky place of an hotel they have there, and they have nothing but mutton to eat." Grant said they might do worse. "Yes, you'd think that the first day, and maybe the second, but by the end of a week the sight of a sheep on the hill'd be too much for you. We can send you over in the Ford every day if you're not fond of walking. You'll have a permit, I suppose?" Grant said that he had thought there would be some water belonging to the hotel. "No; all that water belongs to the gentleman who has Carninnish House. He is a Glasgow stockbroker. Yes, he's here — at least he came a week ago, if he's not gone again."
"Well, if I can have the Ford now, I'll go over and see him." Fishing was the only excuse which would allow him to wander the country without remark. "What did you say his name was?" he asked, as he stepped into a battered Ford alongside a hirsute Jehu with a glaring eye.
"He's a Mr. Drysdale," the landlord said. "He's not overgenerous with the water, but perhaps you'll manage it." With which cold comfort Grant set off on a still colder drive over the hills to the Finley valley.
"Where is the house?" he asked the hirsute one, whose name he learned was Roddy, as they went along.
"At Carninnish."
"Do you mean right in the village?" Grant had no intention of making so public an appearance at this early date.
"No; it's the other side of the river from the village."
"We don't go through the village?"
"No; the bridge is before you come to the village at all."
As they came to the edge of the divide the whole new valley opened maplike before Grant's fascinated gaze several hundreds of feet below. There were no fields, no green at all except on the border of the river that ran, a silver thread, through scattered birch to the distant sealoch. It was a brown country, and the intensity of the sea's blue gave it a foreign air — faery lands forlorn, with a vengeance, Grant thought. As they ran seawards down the side of the hill he noticed two churches, and took his opportunity.