Low in the gentle valley, the summer grasses bend and stir, bend and stir : across the heath, the dull cry of a whaup, and solitude. And quietly onwards, the dark river flowing in and out of life, ever passing, flowing through, as we walk by.

There is a sad song by the stream's edge, where all the waters pass and fall, down through the empty mountains, toward desolate shores. From deep within the resting earth, deep underground, the waters spring. There is a sad song in this land at the edge of the day.

The hills of the west reach down to the sea, clouds hung like banners over dark Carn Mor, closing in upon empty valleys. From Sgurr na Ciche the mountains rise, wilder and rugged, bold and free, stretching north to the loneliest glens. They are vast, unchanging.

Wind and rock converse, earth and water : river through mountain, motion and stillness, passion and peace. And the Tornish seeking its course, under the mountain's frown, when the day had grown grey and sullen, and the children sad without knowing, distant and longing for somebody's love.

They were shouting and tumbling on the water's bank, the sweep of the hillside and moorland beyond making them seem so small, so marginal. The rain was holding off, but the grey clouds added to a sense of emptiness and separation. A few sheep called out in the glen, but the afternoon grew lonely.

Yet they fended the loneliness off.

Some distance apart, Harry was throwing stones aimlessly at the water, staring vacantly. Alasdair crouched and fitted rocks across the path of a burn that was joining the valley. Roberta was fetching some more from a shoal, looking out across the empty landscape, her mind quiet and resting. From time to time they would call out to each other, or race to another bend in the river. Their occasional laughter and squeals would break the stillness, then the day would fall back on the chatter of streams and wind in the heather : the same sounds lurking no doubt behind Charlie, centuries before, yet ever-present, untroubled by time.

Back at the Castle, Caroline and Philip stood on the lawn, next to the driveway. They had finished tea, and Gordon was placing the delicate porcelain cups on a tray.

'We explored the Largie wood this morning,' he told her, his gentle face cheerful and friendly. 'Saw a red squirrel.'

'Those children certainly get about with you.' She smiled. 'Just make sure they don't mix with the ghillies, or any rough types. And make them watch their manners,' she added with feeling. 'It worries me, the way they speak to you sometimes.' She straightened the garden chairs. This remark hurt him a little, though he didn't show it. Far from disliking their familiarity, he saw their directness as a mark of respect, and the integrity of his teaching methods. For they had moved on from rôles and formality to the dynamic cut and thrust of open relationships.

They enjoyed freedom together, and it engendered trust.

He could, of course, have stood the ground of his authority, and imposed learning experiences on them, and crammed their heads full of knowledge. But Gordon was intent to leave them largely to their own devices, so long as they knew where to come to him for help. Give children space to be children, he felt - and there was plenty of space for them here. From the river, they could travel thirty miles west and twenty miles north without crossing a road : range after range of mountains reached back into the deep recesses and fastnesses of Knoydart.

He would stroll down to see them in a while if they hadn't returned. Or if the rain came on.

'Hey!' cried Alasdair to the others, down by the river, at the scene of a major dam project which had been washed away. 'Let's cross over to the other side and explore.'

'How? We've never been up the other side. There's no bridge.'

'What about the pine back there?' suggested Alasdair, pointing to an uprooted tree that had fallen between the two banks.

'Oh, wicked!' shouted Harry, sensing action.

They rushed and scrambled to the tree, with a thrill of danger.

'Go on, Harry! You go first,' Alasdair said. He was soft and kind, and encouraged his friend. 'Quickly! The red-coats are coming!'

The government soldiers after Prince Charlie. They were getting closer. They had to escape. And the treasure, what could they do with the treasure? Alasdair explored the boulders in vain. Harry tangled with branches, thrashed with his arms, and emerged with a grin on the opposite bank. Roberta crossed over next with some ease. Her brother came last, less certain but no less excited. One of his feet slipped in the water, but they had made it. They were safe from their foes. No red-coat could follow them there.

They had crossed over into the Dennis estate, which had about it the mystery and allure of a lost kingdom, arising from years of neglect. They followed up the rough grazing by the side of the river. Looking far back, they could see a vehicle barred by a landslip from further advance.

'Whose Range-Rover is that, anyway?'

'I don't know,' Roberta said. They walked on up the glen.

It was like a forbidden land, fallen fence-posts strewn in a calm dereliction, everything left in a state of disrepair. Up ahead, Harry led the way. Although he was shorter than the others, he had some wild life-force within him, a survival instinct, and he pressed on grimly. As he scouted around looking for the trail, he seemed like a fox, always rooting about, finding things, scavenging. He was robust and strong.

Yet somehow diminished.

What did parents do to their children?

After a while, Alasdair paused for a rest and took off a boot to wring out his sock.

Roberta strolled to the bank, and hung her head over the side, her long dark hair falling, loose around her, as she gazed in the darkness, watching for the fish that were lurking below in the brown water and deep pools.

Turning, she lay herself back on the turf, and felt herself called away, by the words of a poem she knew by heart:

'I hear the pibroch sounding, sounding, Deep o'er the mountain and glen...' she gazed - and Alasdair joined in, leaning on his elbows - 'Where the light springing footsteps are trampling the heath. 'Tis the march of the Cameron men.'

It seemed like only yesterday, and they were gone. The gentle Lochiel and his loyal men, all swept along on the eddies and currents of the years. Alasdair and Roberta lay close, in the stillness, alive, conscious : he listened to the sound of his breath, and could feel the touch of the hairs on his sister's arm, next to him. Though she was still listening for the pibroch in the deeps of the glen.

'Shall we go back now?' Alasdair asked, looking at his sister.

'No,' she replied. 'Mum says not until five. She wants to talk to dad.'

'She always wants to talk to dad.'

'Sometimes it's good for people to talk.' There was silence.

'Do you ever feel ... in the way?' Alasdair asked, cautiously.

Roberta sat up.

'Come on! You're in the way' she joked, avoiding the question, but did not laugh. It was true. She felt a sense of exclusion, of being pushed out, but it was painful to acknowledge it, even to herself.

'Do you think Harry's parents thought he was in the way?' asked Alasdair. 'Was that why they left him?'

'Don't know.' Not an answer.

'I like Harry.'

At that moment, there was a whistle from Harry himself, far ahead. He was waving and seemed to be agitated. So they got to their feet and ran over to where he was kneeling.

'Get down!' he said breathlessly. 'Look. Over there.'

They crouched and peered through the heather in the direction that his finger was pointing. They were not alone.

A few hundred yards further on, they could see a man standing by the side of the river. He seemed to be fishing. To one side, on slightly higher ground, a second person sat, half-reclining.

'Poachers!' said Harry, his eyes suddenly alight.

'We don't know that,' said Roberta, peering through her glasses to get a clearer view.

'Let's take a closer look,' whispered Alasdair. 'Harry, you go round behind the one who's sitting and we'll crawl up the front, this side of the one who's fishing.'

Roberta and her brother crept through the undergrowth, slipped under the sides of banks, using the folds in the land to conceal their approach. Higher up the hillside, they could see occasional movements that indicated that Harry was stealing his way around to the back. Just once, or twice, they thought they spotted a patch of his straw-coloured hair in the willow-scrub. The girl brushed her own hair from wide eyes, and swept aside flies. Both children were sweating, alert.

They watched as the standing man reeled in his line, and lay down his rod, reaching for a flask on the ground. He was not particularly tall, and was balding at the back... 'Older than dad' Roberta thought. She looked at him with care : he seemed - sad, doleful. His eyes looked tired; seemed, almost, drained. And he was tense. He wasn't smiling.

But she understood, intuitively, that he was safe.

'I'm sure he's not a poacher,' she whispered to her brother.

'What about the other one?' Alasdair replied.

They looked across, and at that moment saw Harry beyond him, waving from deep in the heather. It was a humorous sight.

'How can Harry see us?' said Alasdair.

'He's like that - besides, the others aren't looking for us.'

That was an intelligent remark, and true. A voice.

'Have we got any more sandwiches, Chalmers?' The balding one was speaking.

'I'll see, sir.' The other sat up.

'No - stay where you are. I'll get them.'

Chalmers, if that was his name, relaxed again. He was a younger man, who looked ill at ease in his tweed suit. He took off his cap and used it to ward off the flies. He seemed bored, discontented, and kept looking down at his watch.

'Should we get closer?' said Roberta.

'No, we'll be seen.'

'I think they're alright.' She stood up and walked straight towards them, Alasdair trailing behind. In an instant of recognition, she had summed up the whole situation, her sharp young mind realising that these were far from poachers, except in their children's game.

The doleful man with the sad eyes stood up, looking at her, quite shocked. Roberta taking the initiative, smiled, and said 'Hello'.

Chalmers, meanwhile, had seen none of this. When he heard the voice, he reached in his pocket, leapt to his feet and ran down the bank to his friend. At the same time, Harry shouted 'Look out!' and crashed through the heather, tumbling thirty feet to the flat grassy turf by the water.

'It's alright, Chalmers' said the doleful man. 'I think we've been ambushed.' Chalmers frowned angrily at the children and moved to one side, watching them closely and looking around at the heather, as if he expected a dozen more at any moment, or something worse. Then he straightened his jacket and wandered away a few yards.

Harry, who had heather and willow stuffed through his belt and pushed down his front - for camouflage purposes - picked himself up, alert, bemused. The slightest of smiles broke over the kind man's face.

'Where on earth did you come from?' he asked them.

'From the Castle,' said Roberta. 'Ardfinnan.'

'Macleans?' he enquired. She nodded.

There was a silence. Harry was peering into a basket, and watching Chalmers closely from the side of his eye, distrustful, guarded.

'Have you caught anything?' the girl spoke freely.

'Not much,' he replied, then asked them their names.

He looked dolefully around, at the hill-side, his face still quite taut. A sheep called out from over a rise. Across the river, the ruined outline of an ancient shieling could just be seen. Perhaps a family had lived there once, children at the burn, mother in the meadow. What had become of them? There was nothing left. The place had an air of separation, lives passing. Just ruins now. He spoke to them again.

'It's so quiet out here, isn't it? Don't you find it quiet?'

They agreed. The conversation strained.

'What did you do to your leg?' Roberta asked, drawing closer. She had noticed that he was walking with a limp.

'Fell off a horse - injured my thigh : it's just bruised.' He smiled slightly then, trying to keep the theme going, added,

'Have you ever fallen off a horse?'

Before any of them answered, he pointed at Harry (who almost put his hands up in a reflex action) and said, 'Hey! You'll have a fall if you don't tie your laces,' and he sprang down and did them both up. Harry looked on, mystified.

Chalmers was stalking about at the top of the heathery bank, looking at his watch, and obviously jaded.

'Are you here on holiday?' Alasdair asked, still trying to rule out the possibility that they were, indeed, poachers.

The man took stock, looking at Chalmers, and the glen, and eventually answered, 'I suppose you could say that, yes.' Roberta felt him tense up a little, and said to the others,

'Come on, we need to get back!'

They assembled themselves and started off.

'We'll come again tomorrow,' Alasdair called out, kindly.

'I might see you again then,' the man replied, and a warm smile ran over his face before it reverted to a look of tense thoughtfulness.

On the way back, they talked about their chance encounter, and the two men.

'He seemed quite lonely,' Alasdair said. 'Like he was far from home.'

'I think he looked sad and uncared for,' Roberta added, her own thought and feelings reaching out towards his.

Harry cut in.

'Listen - the other bloke! He had a gun. I saw it!'

'Course he didn't,' Alasdair demurred.

'He did, I tell you. You want to watch that one. He nearly shot you.'

'The first one,' Alasdair continued, dismissing the assertion, 'I think he was quite nice really. You know, wotsisname.' He frowned. 'What was his name?'

Roberta was thinking.

'Wiggy!' shouted Harry, laughing hoarsely. 'Wiggy - 'cos he was going bald and he ought to wear a wig!'

They all laughed. Wiggy. We'll call him Wiggy. That's his name. The mighty Wig. Wiggy the Wig-Monster. Nice old Wiggy.

They stopped and looked back at the gentle man. He seemed small now, against the dark shoulder of the hill. They waved but he didn't see them.

'Wiggy!' Alasdair shouted.

'Wiggy!' Harry chorused.

'Sssh!' said Roberta. 'Don't be unkind.'

'He can't hear us,' Alasdair retorted.

And the day was sullen, plashes of rain forming circles here and there on the surface of water; the glen empty, where once a dozen families had played, grown up, and lived together.

Where had they gone to?

What disaster could have caused such awful separation?

* * *