the uncouth syllables awoke some vague recollection in his mind.
The great house in the trees beyond--it must be a great house, for
the map showed large policies--was Huntingtower.

The last name fascinated and almost decided him. He pictured an
ancient keep by the sea, defended by converging rivers, which some
old Comyn lord of Galloway had built to command the shore road,
and from which he had sallied to hunt in his wild hills....He liked
the way the moor dropped down to green meadows, and the mystery of
the dark woods beyond. He wanted to explore the twin waters,
and see how they entered that strange shimmering sea. The odd names,
the odd cul-de-sac of a peninsula, powerfully attracted him.
Why should he not spend a night there, for the map showed clearly
that Dalquharter had an inn? He must decide promptly, for before him
a side-road left the highway, and the signpost bore the legend,
"Dalquharter and Huntingtower."

Mr. McCunn, being a cautious and pious man, took the omens.
He tossed a penny--heads go on, tails turn aside. It fell tails.

He knew as soon as he had taken three steps down the side-road that
he was doing something momentous, and the exhilaration of enterprise
stole into his soul. It occurred to him that this was the kind of
landscape that he had always especially hankered after, and had made
pictures of when he had a longing for the country on him--a wooded
cape between streams, with meadows inland and then a long lift of heather.
He had the same feeling of expectancy, of something most interesting
and curious on the eve of happening, that he had had long ago when he
waited on the curtain rising at his first play. His spirits soared
like the lark, and he took to singing. If only the inn at Dalquharter