Before him the road was lost momentarily in the woods of a shooting-box,
but reappeared at a great distance climbing a swell of upland which
seemed to be the glacis of a jumble of bold summits. There was a
pass there, the map told him, which led into Galloway. It was the
road he had meant to follow, but as he sat on the milestone his
purpose wavered. For there seemed greater attractions in the country
which lay to the westward. Mr. McCunn, be it remembered, was not in
search of brown heath and shaggy wood; he wanted greenery and the Spring.

Westward there ran out a peninsula in the shape of an isosceles
triangle, of which his present high-road was the base. At a
distance of a mile or so a railway ran parallel to the road, and he
could see the smoke of a goods train waiting at a tiny station
islanded in acres of bog. Thence the moor swept down to meadows and
scattered copses, above which hung a thin haze of smoke which
betokened a village. Beyond it were further woodlands, not firs but
old shady trees, and as they narrowed to a point the gleam of two
tiny estuaries appeared on either side. He could not see the final
cape, but he saw the sea beyond it, flawed with catspaws, gold
in the afternoon sun, and on it a small herring smack flopping
listless sails.

Something in the view caught and held his fancy. He conned his map,
and made out the names. The peninsula was called the Cruives--an
old name apparently, for it was in antique lettering. He vaguely
remembered that "cruives" had something to do with fishing,
doubtless in the two streams which flanked it. One he had already
crossed, the Laver, a clear tumbling water springing from green
hills; the other, the Garple, descended from the rougher mountains
to the south. The hidden village bore the name of Dalquharter, and