The brother and sister conspiring together.

'Then I'd paste some pea-nut butter on his hankie, and when he blows his nose...'

Her brother gasping fondly.

'Honestly, Roberta. You make me laugh sometimes...'

'He always blows his nose in the assembly...'

'Just before he gives out all the notices,' Alasdair giggled. 'You wouldn't really, though.'

She glanced at him. They both burst out with laughter, as they walked along, the others following in their tracks. The boy looked up affectionately. His sister seemed so filled with joy just to be setting off again.

The morning was delightful - warm and bright : ahead of them, the rays of the early sun alighting on the waters, sparkling along the surface of Coruisk; all of them on the trail of dreams once more... a band of friends, communal, close... sharing in the sanity of human kindness.

Roberta felt with pleasure the ardent sunlight on her face, the cheep and chirr of birdsong in the ling, and its lovely fragrance. Breathing in the clear air of the morning, its invigorating freshness seemed to make her feel alive; feel more responsive to the wild beauty of this other world.

Far from the tense and urgent hordes, they seemed to inhabit a land cut off from time : an Other World of happy laughter and long still silences measured out by the gradual swing of the sun, the call and slow approach of the distant glen. Their gentle conversation ebbed and flowed, quiet like the wilderness around them. A strange cut-off apartness seemed to hold and keep them safe.

They thread their way across the dried-up peat, and over great bare plates of rock, scraped by the glaciers in the last ice-age : ravaged and scarred by the wild and frozen wastes. It seemed, somehow, so recent in this place; a time just passed, and soon to return, no doubt, in the ageless cycle of frost, and snow, and ice.

Harry was calling behind them. They heard him cry, 'Hurry up, Wiggy!' And Wiggy followed them all, settled once more into the morning's rhythm : not in a hurry of any kind but walking in deep contentment.

Their thoughts flashed back to the start of the day, and they laughed.

It had been a matchless summer dawn, like awaking to the first day of creation! They'd left the cheerful chaos of their tent, rising and stretching, and entered the hut to the smell of frying mushrooms - Wiggy in shirt and underpants was singing 'Men of Harlech' at the stove, while Harry fetched the plates.

'You need a decent breakfast before the expedition!' he beamed, in cheery humour, with the frying pan in hand. And they ate with relaxed pleasure, in the close little hut; their sincere appreciation made the chef smile with delight.

Outside again, the spell was still unbroken, as if some charm watched over them : the weather front still holding off; still somewhere to the West.

'What a morning' Douglas exulted. 'What a day for climbing hills!' The sunlight flickered in his eyes : looking above, the tops were clear; sky blue; and sun already warm. When they saw this, Alasdair and Roberta had run to the shore, and shouted for joy; Gordon had yelled as well at the top of his voice; their echoes ringing around the sea-slapped walls - at the joyful prospect of such a day.

They'd tidied up the hut and all chased Wiggy down towards the sea, waves dancing gaily on the ocean's face : a flow and a movement, the tide upon the turn.

'I thought I saw a flash across the bay' said Harry, as he rubbed his eyes.

'Come on, come on' called Alasdair : all fleeting movement, now, and glad response.

They'd set off, Murdo watching after them. He waved and gazed with longing as they left, with an ache for their adventure. He shook his head, reluctant not to follow.

But they had soon passed out of sight : resolved to reach the summit.

'Let's go.'

'We're moving off...'

'We're on our way!'

Ahead, the pinnacle, as yet unseen... but they felt its irresistible lure; the day and all the mountains beckoning... everything in motion.

As they rounded the hill from the hut, light was sparkling on the pouring river that splashed out of Coruisk : the sun in the sky, the glare of the water, flashed in their eyes, on its way to the shore; as it traversed the glistening rocks and pebbles, moving seawards in constant flow. In its joyful roar they had hardly heard their laughter; but river, and children, and adults, were all of them moving, all of them bright and alive!

Beyond the purling river, along the still depths of Coruisk, Roberta and Alasdair walked together closely : striding light-footed through the clean earth and the heather. The trill of birdsong was in the air; the hillsides all around them, astir with hidden life. And there was - light! - on loch and in the sky. The day gleamed with it, bright and wild.

They followed the contours of the hill, children and land converging, in quieter movement. Wiggy brought up the rear, light-hearted and calm : a handkerchief tied on his head, climbing rope slung round his shoulder. Douglas had picked it up at the hut. The American lumbered close to him, plane strapped onto his pack to please the children. Gordon carried his own rope, neatly coiled and gathered on top of his rucksack. Ahead of him, Harry was prowling, eager, alert : beyond, the tall girl at the front, and Alasdair - antler still tied to his kit. The track was shimmering in the heat, the morning bright and free.

And this was freedom, in their own country, in their other world. Somehow thoughts locked down below began to find release and break the surface, rise to the light of day in the lonely wilds.

'We seem cut off from everything, from mum, from dad...' Alasdair said, looking about at the mountains all around.

'We'll never be cut off from them' Roberta murmured. The boy walked on in thought.

'I mean, right now. Of course, I will always care for mum and dad... I trust them both...' He smiled openly, boyishly. 'It's a commitment, really. That's the most important thing. A feeling inside me that no-one can take away...'

'I agree with that' said Roberta, consenting. 'I'm frightened of being hurt sometimes... but I do. I trust them.' She reflected. 'I feel committed to them, just like you.'

Alasdair shaded his eyes from the sun.

'Wiggy says we should always believe in our parents. Always believe in their goodness and love.'

'Wiggy's right. He's often right... He treats you as a person, not a child. I wish that mum and dad would realise that. See me as just a person like themselves : not a daughter who is told what she has to do; how to behave.'

She screamed aloud. The wildness of Coruisk incited her.

'What a place!' cried Douglas from behind. 'What a location!'

Several minutes passed.

'I mean - mothers, fathers : they're only people like ourselves. Wiggy as well. He's just another person. Most adults are just bewildered incompetents trying to cope... only they feel they ought to be able to, and they act out rôles... 'mother' 'father'.' She thought wistfully about her dad. 'I feel he's almost afraid of himself.'

'I'm afraid of him, anyway -' Alasdair admitted.

'But that's what I mean. You see him as mighty 'dad' who must be feared... but he's just another human being like us, trying to be himself...'

Alasdair murmured. 'Well all I want is them to be themselves, for them to be happy. I don't care how...'

She smiled at her brother kindly.

Harry had joined them.

'That's what I want for my dad too' he added, unexpectedly.

Alasdair swallowed.

'Do you mean that, Harry?'

Harry frowned reflectively. The sunlight seemed to flood his mind.

'He's like me, Al... we're outlaws, see... and maybe he's happier that way, somewhere out there... eh?'

Harry blinked and stared straight at his friend.

'I think, perhaps, my dad's like that' Alasdair said. 'I think he wants to escape from prison and be himself.'

He held back emotion. Roberta said nothing.

The other side of some wallowy peat, Harry continued.

'Wiggy says, we only hurt ourselves if we don't forgive. In a way, to a point, I think he's right.' He cocked his head, and looked around at the beauty of the morning, cloud-shadows shifting elusively over the face of the loch. 'I do...' he paused, uncertainly. 'I do forgive him.' He chucked a stone at a nearby boulder.

'Got it!' he laughed, and stumbled on.

'Besides,' he added, 'maybe I don't need them.'

Alasdair shivered.

'Everyone needs a family, Harry...'

'Yes - but I mean, we're like a family, aren't we? All of us, out here together on this trip? We matter to each other. And I'm allowed to be myself...'

A breeze rose up and swept the water softly.

'But, Harry,' Alasdair asked him with concern, 'what will happen at the end of this summer? What will you do without your mum and dad?'

'Who cares?' He shrugged his shoulders. 'I'll manage. There are other people I can trust.' A pause, as they crossed a little burn. 'Anyway, I don't think I'm going back to school.'

'You have to!' Alasdair sounded shocked.

'Not if I don't want to...'

'Come off it. It's alright with Gordy...'

'Yes, but I want to carry on like this. I'd like to sail out west, into the Atlantic, and carry on to Greenland. Join the Eskimos. It would be wicked fun!'

'Inuit' Roberta corrected him.

'Pardon?'

'Inuit. That's what you should call them.'

Harry tossed his arms up in the air.

'I don't mind. As long as I can live in an igloo with Wiggy and Gordy, and hunt for bears...'

'Why?' Roberta protested gently. 'What did they ever do to you...?'

Harry threw a handful of earth at her. She scowled and smiled at his affront.

'Do you have to take everything I say literally?' he said in mock anger. 'I'm trying to tell you how I'm feeling...' Then he cut off. 'Look at that boulder! I'm going to climb up that!'

Roberta and Alasdair carried calmly on.

'I'll tell you how I'm feeling' Alasdair murmured. 'I'm feeling nervous and excited at the same time... About the Pinnacle, I mean...' and after some thought 'What would The Headmaster say about all this?'

'Him!' she muttered scornfully, as subterranean thoughts broke into the open. 'He's stupid.'

'Roberta...'

'He is, though...' she insisted, cut off so far from that other world.

Alasdair swallowed. This ultimate blasphemy, dancing on the graves, made the boy tremble aghast at his sister's dissent. Yet the earth did not open before her or swallow them up.

'I hate his false pretence' she said. 'He hides behind a formal act. The act is all that matters in his world. His values seem tied up with being respectable. And worst of all...' she laughed, appalled... 'he tries to make us all grow up like him!'

'But school helps you to pass exams, to get a job.'

'I don't care about exam-results. I study because I just like finding out. I study for learning itself. I like to search, and feel that I'm involved discovering things : not just be told. Take Mr Jones. His lessons are so boring...'

'Boring!' choked Harry, catching up. 'They put you in a coma...'

'He just reads from his notes. You ask a question, and he says he's not got time.'

A flock of little birds was lifting, dipping, along their way ahead.

'Somehow, with the best teachers,' she continued, 'I think I learn most not from what they teach, but from the kind of people they are. The rest comes too, of course, but I learn from them, their interest, their enquiry; from how they think and who they are. Usually, those kinds of teachers are interested in me as well. Not just trying to make me pass exams.'

'But you need to pass exams, Roberta' Alasdair was reasoning, as Gordon caught them up.

'Oh dear' he smiled. 'Is Roberta having a soapbox day?'

The girl looked.

'Such a big deal is always made about success, exam results' she said, with flowing feeling 'but I am mainly creative, and what has that to do with coming top...' She challenged the teacher honestly. 'Success is not more precious than pure beauty. But when I really want to express myself I often feel I'm causing such a problem.'

'I shouldn't worry' Gordon sighed, gazing benevolently out towards the hills. 'It's not your problem, is it? Besides, you do so well. You please them nearly all the time.'

'But I don't work to please them. I don't want to be the person they want me to be... I like myself, the way I want to be, the way I am... Why are competitions and certificates - being a success - always put at the heart of what we do?'

Alasdair turned to the teacher at his side.

'What do you think is most important, Mr Gordon? About being at school, I mean?' The boy's engaging smile, attractive, caught the man, enchanting him. He smiled back in the morning sunlight and breathed the air.

'The blossoming of each person's personality, Alasdair. That is the heart and soul of education.'

'Everything blossoms on the Island of Glass' Roberta sighed, in a sudden reverie.

'Let's go there, then' he laughed affectionately.

'We're there' she murmured, and silently walked on.

They skirted, light-hearted, along the rocks : feelings and quiet awareness in procession as they thread their way.

At the further end of Loch Coruisk, the burns from the encircling mountains join, flowing down into the Corrie of Water - Coire Uisge. They followed the river at the head of the loch, going deeper and deeper into the Cuillin. And past them, as they tracked upstream, the waters swept and eddied : in eternal restlessness and flow, cascading gently in the sun, from lurking otherness and separation, in the remote apartness of the hills.

'Look over here' cried Alasdair, peering in pools of translucent turquoise clarity. 'I'd love to swim in there!' Just to look at it, seemed to cool the soul : the light winking, sparkling on the surface, and waters dropping away to depths, though the stones at the bottom seemed so close.

They reached a little waterfall, and Philip Gordon put down his pack. He sensed there was a collective will to rest. They dashed their heads, in turn, into the waters - cool and refreshing in the heat of day; assuaging their thirst and bringing swift relief.

Beside them, the stream : plunging and dashing constantly by, from inaccessible sources in the hill. Where did its dark mysterious waters go? All flow, all passing by. And as they lay, recovering, on the sun-soaked banks - they watched the ceaseless waterfall leap for ever, as it had leapt through all the centuries past; as now, and as in Charlie's day.

Gordon sat up, and looked to the boy.

'So what do you think happened to the treasure, Alasdair?'

The boy went earnestly through it again, recalled Lochiel and Cluny, and then concluded with Murray of Broughton. 'He said it was all accounted for, but as he turned king's evidence I don't feel I can trust him. Maybe it was spent on cattle, but I don't think so.'

'Perhaps' said Wiggy 'it was simply lost.'

'I think there was deception' the girl cut in, brushing aside some dark hair from her face. Wiggy sighed.

'There's always enough of that.' Then, turning to Gordon, he asked again : 'Would he have made a good king?' The question teased him.

'What makes a good king?' Gordon answered back.

Wiggy lay in silence in the sun.

'When he was anointed' he intoned 'Solomon asked for Wisdom.'

Gordon raised his eyebrows.

'And then he married seven hundred wives...'

Wiggy winced.

'One is enough...' They softly laughed.

The morning all around felt quiet and lovely. Beyond the restless outpour of the stream, they could hear the indolent chatter of their friends : Alasdair talking to his sister; Douglas and his cheerful drawl. The mountain burn's commotion seemed so cool and undisturbing, swirling in pools and currents below the falls; light on the water, glistening in the spray; Harry, pissing in the sunlight quite nearby.

Wiggy and Gordon rested, side by side, their peace and silence like a solitude; and yet, beyond their thoughts not vacancy but, somehow, falling back upon a vast reality.

'Ah! Escape from the blare and unrest of the modern world!' Gordon declared, at length, adjusting the hands behind his head.

The sun continued to shine on Wiggy's upturned face.

'But it's not escapism, is it?' he said to the teacher. 'It's regaining balance. Learning to walk the ridge between two worlds. We can spend our lives pursuing wealth and comfort; become obsessed with holding on to it. But often the price is the atrophy of our spiritual senses, wasting away through lack of use... Yet without spirituality...'

'Where there is no vision, the people perish' Gordon recited.

'Precisely.' Wiggy beamed more earnestly. 'I told you at the outset : sometimes we need to take time out, and gather again the lost threads of our lives... to come to terms...' He rested, quiet, receptive, in the heather... 'People ought to go walkabout more often, to recover the practice of pilgrimage, to take time out to look for something deeper, or set aside a day in the week, even - and get back in tune...' there was a long silence... 'We've lost the ability to listen, you see...'

He yawned and breathed in deeply.

'I like to think,' said Gordon as Roberta watched and listened to them both, 'that if we find a balance, then we'll have less need of harsh dogmatics... less interest in polarities... less care for tense certainties or ideal saintliness.'

'Some people try to portray themselves as saints' Wiggy murmured.

'That's just a product of insecurity' Gordon replied. 'A lack of balance.'

They let it rest.

'But maybe if we listen' Wiggy resumed after a while 'we'll sometimes encounter holiness...'

'Perhaps' the teacher sighed, without conviction.

"And hark!" Douglas's voice beyond them, pitching in with a fragment of Shelley's verse. "Is it the music of the pines? Is it the lake? Is it the waterfall? 'Tis something sadder, sweeter far than all..." He shaded his face with his rugged hand. 'What is it beckons us down through the centuries? Heck! I don't know. The aching longing of the human heart, perhaps, for some lost splendour.'

Alasdair felt engaged and happy. 'It beckoned to Charlie too, I expect...' the shine of beauty upon the heather, across his forehead, and over the tumbling waters by their side... 'and Charlie went in pursuit as well...'

There was silence between them, as if all of them listened.

The boy continued, addressing Douglas.

'What will you do when you've climbed the mountain?'

'Ha! as Stevenson said, To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive...'

'So after that?' He wanted to know.

Andrew Douglas looked at the boy with a thoughtful frown.

'We always travel onwards' was all he said.

And the stream poured on... volumes of water funnelling through... ceaselessly moving onwards... eternally there.

All of a sudden, Harry let out a cry : 'It's the Skipper!'

And Alasdair, swinging round, called out 'It's Murdo!'

'Wait for me!' he shouted to them all. 'Wait for me!'

The two boys ran back to meet him, as he approached, and the old man came shambolling up in the sun. He arrived dishevelled and breathless, though he could not contain some friendly laughs : the light glistening on his sweating torso; ropes and slings from the hut strung round his body; and the saltire of St. Andrew from the boat.

Wiggy cast him a questioning glance.

'Well' he answered congenially 'Ah reasoned, if ah didnae come, ye'd prob'ly break ye'r heids...'

There seemed to be a glow and gleam about him. Fortified by whisky, he had resolved to return again to the peaks, and cast all his careworn days behind. And he exuded release and joy, as if he'd broken free from long confinement.

'But why?' asked Wiggy, curious. 'What made you come?'

Murdo stroked his rough unshaven chin.

'Sometimes you have tae mak' a decision. Something in your heart says 'now' and 'go'!' His eyes twinkled, at the children's upturned faces.

'Besides,' he added, collapsing on the heather, breathless and wheezing... 'I sensed a feeling, o' something closing in on me. Mah ain mortality, perhaps.' He shook his head, but did not mention an altercation that had passed. 'I felt a voice inside me saying : follow your feelings Murdo, and follow Charlie... ye've been asleep too long.'

He pulled from the bottle and gazed, hat knocked right back... stared at the sky.

'Ach, well - I'll come and share with ye this wild, free land... It's a braw and bonnie country, right enough.'

He wiped the liquor from his chin and laughed : birdsong was ringing in the undergrowth and all around.

'Ye're makin' proper progress, though' he added. 'We'll see the pinnacle before so very long.'

'We'll see the pinnacle soon' Alasdair echoed to his friend.

'I heard him' Harry rasped, and then got up to take a drink.

'There's nae gaein' back' the sailor muttered, with a sad but youthful smile. 'Nae gaein' back at a'!'

They all looked upwards to the heights.

'Well that should be our slogan' said Roberta. 'No going back! Just forward, onward, up!'

They all turned round together, as an unexpected bark fractured the solitude, and Harry came towards them with a dog.

'Where has he come from?' he asked with great amusement and affection, kissing his face. It was as if it had appeared from another dimension, from out of nowhere.

'It must have lost its owner, puir wee thing...' Roberta said.

'I always wanted one of my own' Harry exclaimed, as the dog panted.

'We can't take it...' Alasdair gasped, turning to his teacher... 'can we?' Gordon shrugged his shoulders.

'I'll call it Dog in memory of Jock.'

'You can't do that' Roberta moaned. 'I'll call you Boy.'

'Alright - I'll call it Rover then...'

'Oh no! Rover?' Alasdair groaned.

'Yes' Harry laughed, with glad exasperation. 'Why not? Rover. He's just a mongrel after all.'

Wiggy looked on and watched the boy, so sullen at their first encounter by the River Tornish. He had regained his natural affection, and seemed relaxed, released from so much fear. Alasdair supported him, stroking the dog and nudging Harry, with a gentle fondness.

As both boys fussed him, he barked again.

Their love, and need of love - Wiggy observed - projected on a dog. Children! So precious and so beautiful. How they deserved to grow up in the warmth of love and innocence... And as he watched, it seemed to him, life was so tentative, youth so fleeting, and childhood irreplaceable : to be treasured and protected and upheld... one's own children too... they were such an affirmation of grace and truth.

Alasdair was laughing at his friend.

'Oh Harry, you're a nut sometimes.'

'Aargh!' squealed Harry, and bundled over with Rover in the heather, all lost in tumbling light and blue-skied day.

They seemed buried in the floor of the great corrie, inhabiting an Other World that was their own. Looking up at the huge buttresses of the mountain, Roberta asked 'What can you see on the other side of the ridge?'

'Oh, the people in Glenbrittle, a little camp-site, cars winding down the lonely road... the rest of the world...'

'Huh! Do we have to go back there?'

'The Ridge is the place to be...' said Douglas... 'only for those who dare to walk the edge...'

And Roberta, distant, recalled some other words. 'Do you fear to tread life's edge...' she'd heard them say in the shaded wood. No. No, she did not fear - wanted only to be there, only to know that sharper life, between two worlds at once, spontaneously.

'Aye' Murdo murmured. 'The only place tae be! Let's gae there noo... Let's gae along the edge...' 'No going back!' Roberta said again.

The gentle breeze almost seemed to urge them, seemed to whisper 'Follow' : she stirred and rose to go.

'Let's get moving again' she said.

'Ah've only jist sit doon' laughed Murdo in complaint.

In the long silences of the day they journeyed on, the dog diving in and out of the ling, sunlight cascading down across the hillside. Then all at once, after a bend of the river, it was there... and took their breath away.

The Pinnacle.

Looking upwards, the brilliance of the sun dazzled their eyes : but, just visible, the huge black outline of cliffs and skyline ridges - and, over all, the Pinnacle.

It was like a glimpse of some more savage beauty.

'Bloomin' Nora' Alasdair gasped.

'Yesss!' breathed Roberta, with outstretched fists.

Harry, head to one side in the light, just shot a grin of grim determination.

It lurked there, somehow set apart : a looming ancient grandeur.

Murdo took a casual swig of whisky.

'Aye!' he muttered. 'Thar she blows!'

Roberta thrilled.

'I wish that dad could see us, when we stand there on the top.'

Then she swung and reached to Gordon, tugging the man.

'You're brilliant, bringing us here!' she cried.

They looked again together, in the sunshine and the warmth : all held - Gordon too - in a sudden sense of wonder.

'How do you get up?'

'No-one can get up there!' Alasdair muttered.

'Perhaps we could make it up the other side. It's hard to see from here.'

'We'll do it, I know we will!' said Harry, bravado masking awe; then turning to Murdo, remonstrated. 'Well, you've been up it. What's it like?'

Alasdair caught his breath and waited.

'Ye jist gae up it' the skipper smirked.

'Bloo-min-Nor-a' the boy repeated in a nervous whisper, and wiped his brow.

'Keep going!' said Wiggy cheerfully, and they carried on, their smallness marked beneath the huge mountain; and yet their natural joy - what they were born with - seemed to leap up from deep within : their hearts embracing the challenge... making, bold, for the summit... wanting to arrive at a citadel close to the sky.

Along the floor of the valley they walked in the sunlight, Murdo behind singing snatches of song in his own tongue - 'The days when I was young' and 'Green Isle of the Mists' - his eyes sparkling like the bog-cotton and shining grass around him in the lonely heath; and yet, a sighing as well, as he sang : the shadow of other times and other people - their enduring presence.

Wiggy, who had dropped back to accompany him, was provoked by the haunting sadness of his music, and enquired 'What's that you're singing, Murdo?'

'It's aboot the injustice laid on the people by hard-hearted men. My heart grows weary, when ah mind what's become of this land.' He shook his head. 'They have destroyed the life, the heart of it...'

He looked about him at the desolate glen.

'The vanished people, ye ken, they were too gentle. They couldnae comprehend what cam' upon them...'

'I never realised, until this week' Wiggy murmured 'how the scars remain unhealed, and feelings still run raw. But sometime we have to relinquish the past, Murdo, and try to renew the future.'

'But don't ye see?' he resumed. 'It's no the past I'm talking o'. I hear the voice of Mairi Mhor calling tae me from the cold beyond : stand up for your rights! Remember ye're a people! Unless ye give a hard strike, while the axe is in your hand, they will keep ye going, going, until ye are dispossessed...'

Wiggy frowned.

'And so I see Scotland now, governed by those we did not ask tae govern us, still over-ruled, still kept in disregard.'

They shared the golden liquor in the sunlight.

'But the people are not cast out any more' Wiggy reasoned. 'There is no tyranny.'

Murdo smiled and put his arm around him as he spoke. He answered with quiet conviction.

'There remains this irrefutable fact. I can assert it plainly, with disquiet. It still goes on just as before, my friend. These seventeen years, Scotland has been governed by people we didnae vote for, who over-rule our own true aspirations. That's not democracy. It's government by a ruling class whose power is based in another land.'

He shook his head, and gazed at the empty landscape all around.

'Ah dinnae blame yourself. But the fact remains. The heart has been ripped from this country, and its way of life ravaged. Will the people no be allowed, ever, tae determine their destiny for themselves? Will the heart-felt convictions of this people be forever subject tae foreigners in London?'

Wiggy threw up his arms.

'But what do you think I can do about that?'

'Do not preside. Dinnae lend your consent.'

Then they both smiled calmly at each other, and Wiggy pulled away -

'Murdo Macleod! You always made unreasonable demands. Do you not remember...'

'Och! Ah remember fine...'

'How did you sort it out?' The sailor grinned back kindly.

'Who says I did? Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction...'

'Well it couldn't just have vanished!'

Murdo was singing again, dropping further behind... 'You're impossible!' Wiggy complained in jovial protest. 'Unreasonable!' But the old man was far away.

Wiggy pressed on and Andrew Douglas dropped back to keep Murdo company : the two men discussing the Pinnacle together, while ahead, the others drew further and further away. The wilderness seemed to envelop, to swallow them up.

At last, at another bend in the river, Roberta saw that the trail turned upwards. She veered to her left, a little way up beside a smaller burn, then waited for the teacher. The prospect of the continual ascent above them - the prospect of sweat and toil to the ridge - sapped their resolve, and they lay in clumps of heather, rough to touch, and just relaxed... the white cloud overhead, glistening with light. Around them, quiet : the soft wind breathing through the grass, the heather bobbing gently in the breeze... and birdsong, scarcely noticed. Nearby, the little burn sprang from the mountain-side, from deep and distant sources in the hill.

Soon the boys had caught them up and Wiggy too, wiping the sweat with his grimy handkerchief, and greeting Harry's dog. They rested in unconscious huddled closeness, soaking in the warmth, laughing and chattering calmly in the light.

The day was good : it held them.

Wiggy looked round at the wild remoteness of this valley-head, surrounded by mountain ridges, quite cut off. They were surely in their own world here, the mountains all enclosing them. In Coire-Uisge.

'I don't think even the devil could find me now' Wiggy declared with undisguised relief. They were out on the verges, far from the need for pretension. 'What a scene of savage beauty!'

'Has anyone got a camera?' Alasdair asked.

'No.'

Wiggy scowled aside to Gordon.

'Thank goodness we didn't bring any bloody cameras on this trip.'

'Quite' said the teacher. 'You can't capture this kind of beauty anyway.'

Behind them, they heard - half aware - the quiet discourse of the burn, springing alive from the ground and spreading glints of light; colour refracted off its ever-moving surface. Sparkling from below the peaty earth, the pure spring-water beckoned to the children, who dipped their heads in gulping satiation... to re-emerge, the water shining on their faces, hair...

Harry filled a cup, and let the chill water trickle across the exposed front of Wiggy's stomach. He scarcely moved, dismissing the provocation with a lazy nonchalant wave : the boy slumped down beside him.

Gordon, sitting on a boulder and cleaning his glasses, watched them drink; then knelt as well and drew from the pure coolness of the burn. Rising, dripping - the sunlight and water in his eyes - he returned to his seat, and heard at once a dismal crunch. Looking round, he stared in disbelief.

'Blast!' he complained.

'What have you done?' Alasdair asked, sensing from the teacher's voice a heave of dismay.

He shook his head and scratched his hair.

'I've smashed my glasses' he murmured. 'I don't believe it.'

The children reacted kindly.

'Perhaps we could stick them together?' Harry suggested.

Roberta picked up the pieces of lens and frame, and shook her head.

'You'll still be able to see a bit' said Alasdair. 'You're not completely blind.'

'I'm afraid I can hardly see my hands without them on,' the teacher sighed. 'Do you remember the lesson I couldn't find them?'

'It was rather difficult' Alasdair admitted.

'It was a riot' Gordon groaned.

'Try mine.' Roberta took hers off. Gordon burst into forlorn laughter, the light returning to his unframed eyes.

'Hopeless' he sighed. 'You look like a blob.'

'She is' quipped Harry. Roberta smiled sarcastically, and retrieved her glasses. They gathered round and fussed the teacher with concern, but he was vehement that he would carry on.

'It's an infernal nuisance' he said to Wiggy, a short while after. 'I'll have to rely on you and Andrew to keep them safe. You'll have to be my eyes from now.'

'The children won't get into trouble' Wiggy assured him firmly. 'Trust me. It's their adventure after all.'

Douglas and Murdo were approaching at last, deciding the systems of belay they could use at the top of the pinnacle. When the skipper joined them, he sat down wheezing.

'Ye dinnae huf tae wait fer me, mo nighean' he winked. 'I'll reach the top afore ye!' Then he crashed back breathless in the purpling heather, drinking in the sun, and remembering all the years gone by - when his limbs were young and his lungs were strong... recalled the intensity of winter days, and precious life, and sudden death. He watched the scarves of mist above, appearing across the ridge and then dispersing... always, he kept on watching the sky.

Douglas fell down by Wiggy and took in the day.

They lay there silent.

Listening.

'How do you capture so much beauty' Douglas pondered, at length, in the brilliant sunshine. 'If you try to snatch it, it still departs... like the ghost of Charlie, elusive in the heather, in ceaseless flight...'

Wiggy remained quiet and still for a while before he answered.

'It's in pursuit, as Murdo said last night, that we find out we are our own becoming : in the flow that's lost as soon as it goes through.' He paused and listened to the stream. 'All those repeated moments of real being - they pass through, they are lost and they can never be recalled. And yet, they are the real expression of all our life, more existent and substantial along the tremulous border of this world than the decaying life we like to call ourselves. So often, we try to hold on to the thing that is dying; although it is not the feeling, the beauty itself; but passing with time from the surface of this earth.'

He seemed abstracted, distant.

'But in pursuit and in our giving, in our chasing, the real life and feeling breaks right through... We find ourselves, in opening up our hearts and letting go...'

He paused, the garrulous bicker and laughter of the stream, soft in the background. Beyond it, a lurking.

'Shall we chase Charlie? Well we have, but we can't hold on to beauty and romance. It's all a flow, a process, a becoming. There's a real mystery in all beautiful forms... and particularly in the quiet of these wild mountains. But their beauty isn't static, is it, Andrew? It's restless and becoming. And their being and becoming are our own. Do you think?'

Andrew blinked.

'I think' he reflected quietly 'there is a true best self, of which you are almost an enactment on the surface of this world... a true, best self which is linked to so much beauty, so much feeling...'

The breeze was rising, growing fresher. Roberta could see the route ahead, to the upper coire, and on from there to the bealach and the skyline.

'Come on! Let's move!' she said, at length.

'And into battle!' Harry called. 'No going back!'

Now groaning effort and straining muscles, as they set off and laboured slowly upwards, Roberta leading all the way. She felt the ceaseless stir and sense of flight : it made her joyful, ranging free and wild. Her body responded to the elements - the coy breeze on her face, and pleasant sweat; the touch of gabbro as she climbed; its rough volcanic rock pricking her fingers; the perfumed scent of the sun-steeped hill. She breathed it in and felt alive.

Wiggy caught up and joined her at the front, and they both pressed on, intent on the distant peak that strangely lured them. Then pausing to put on her top, she could see the others straggling far below : the boys stopping for frequent rests; Murdo stumbling further behind; the American bringing up the rear, and shepherding for Gordon. She brushed back her long dishevelled hair and her eyes seemed wild.

'Come on, Wiggy' she said. 'We must keep going.'

And they rose, light-footed, toward the upper sanctuaries. As they gained altitude and approached the high corrie, they could feel their emotions breaking free in little waves of openness and feeling : the gentle wind rippling down the glen, the hillside astir; and higher, the mountain peaks at rest, reflecting the quiet unwinding that had settled on them both.

In the end, as they reached the heather-banked upper corrie, Roberta stopped and smiled into the sunlight.

'We'd better wait' she murmured. 'Let's have a rest.'

They threw themselves down on the heather... absorbing the warmth.

It was very quiet.

Wiggy sat for a moment, panting and breathing.

Roberta lay back, brushing the hair from her face, and wiping the sweat aside; lay still, and breathed, hardly moving at all except to turn the friendship bracelet gently over her slender wrist.

Just watching, listening.

Around them, she could hear a sibilance in the grass, as the wind made fresh advances, played on the cheek. And beyond, the countenance of the hillside was bright and comely : the heather glittering, like multiple outlets of heaven; tiny bells hanging among the crags, minute flowers nodding low in the lap of the mountain, gems in sunlight.

As the breeze swayed past, it seemed to buffet the plants in rocking motion : all the heather swept up in a movement across the hillside, and quivering with immanent life and beguiling beauty. But the man and the girl lay still, aware of approaches, of shadows that stalked by their side, ever more openly in the great wildness. And lying there still, in a kind of humility, they were aware once again of that faint vibration of feeling, proceeding from chinks, from openings, stealing upon them : a primal rhythm, now low and murmuring, now rising all around to elation and dance.

On the opposite hillside, light was playing with passing shadows. Below, the sun was winking on the burns. Between them, space. In their ancient stillness, the mountains seemed endowed with honour and dignity, and ennobled the heart.

It made them feel surrendered and uplifted. And as they gazed in dream-like rest, overlooking the pristine wilderness, the prospect spread before them seemed so fresh and lovely - captivating - it was like a lost inheritance : the beautiful land of a civilisation based on feelings... and so much feeling, so much presence, lurking, brooding over the lonely glens... like some deep heart-beat, some low-throbbing pulse.

It was as if they beheld, together, a kingdom : of splendour and honour and beauty and peace. And it moved them deeply. It rocked them, moved them both. As if a door that was once ajar, was swinging open, and feeling flooding in... all movement now, all flow... the wilderness... they... in communion... in a convergence of feelings, a convergence of worlds.

Wiggy felt sudden release from all tension : exalted, drawn up in a freedom like dance. Then he was staring in stillness, for a moment in anoesis.

'What are we doing, my girl' he murmured 'choking the atmosphere, and raping the earth? What are we doing : despoiling, defiling the beautiful land...?'

She looked at him closely.

'I believe' she said, in a more girlish voice 'that the beautiful land you talk about - it renews itself...' listening again, feeling. The girl, as Murdo said, a sensitive : inhabited by some unusual impulse of nature.

He set his face quite sternly and reflected.

'Yet I feel that we live in a land of lost hope and glory : what if the grail, the hope of renewal, has been removed? If the realm no longer harbours such glory?' He turned towards her. 'I have such a sense of departed honour and loss...'

'Let me adjust your crown,' Roberta said fondly, and knelt before him, straightening the handkerchief tied around his brow.

'Now stop talking, Wiggy, do...' she whispered, in gentle delight. 'Hush! Listen! The world is alive!' The caress of the breeze stole between them, like a delicate touch or whispered kiss. There was silence again, or a voice so low it could only be felt, not heard : like a sad consoling music; like a thrumming from the corners of the glen... and the distant echo of the ever-flowing waters far below. A withdrawn beauty shivering along the borders of the land, and trembling by their consciousness together : the rhythm returning, so distant, so low, it was shaking the body this time... like a slow, repeated chant... the world sustained upon its echoing.

And beyond, among them, those others : Charlie, his friends, in flight and wonder too... now present and close, now sleeping in the heather, with their boyish and girlish dreams... and the lover lingering low in the earth, all life given over in faithfulness. Roberta was absent again, thrilling, sighing, and stretching back... Glenaladale rising, rejoicing, in the sunlight; Charlie and his men shifting somewhere on the hill; no doubt the Dog still blundering through the heather; and others, others, all given in the same, the present delight.

The cloud shadows started to mottle the mountain opposite, flushes of brightness coming and going, the day growing moody. Wiggy looked over in silence at the girl : Roberta, so fey and entered into, she seemed - almost - angelic, indwelt.

The wind was getting up, and he pulled on his shirt. They shared some cheese, and talked like equals to one another, in quiet trust.

Between mouthfuls, he heard the silence again, re-echoing.

'It's strange,' he said, 'how almost everything that really matters seems to involve rhythm and resonance. Like friends' - he peered down the hillside below - 'there's a rhythm to find among a group of friends. It involves attunement.'

He paused.

'Or sleep. Settling each night into a quieter rhythm, breathing and slowing down 'til we enter in...' He plucked a sprig of heather : it felt rough and familiar in his hand. 'We need to find a daily routine, I think, to give us rhythm and balance in our lives...'

She looked at him.

'The balance between this world and the other?'

'Yes, if you like. What some call prayer. Surrendering our busy pace and thoughts, and resting in silence, waiting, until we hear again that deep, eternal rhythm.'

He took another piece of cheese, and caught her smiling, smiling fondly at him, and listening closely...

'It's there in the reassuring backdrop to our lives' Wiggy carried on. 'The rhythm of the tides, the cycle of seasons. Places have it too; and works of art. The beauty behind some pictures seems to shudder through your body.'

'Have you ever noticed,' the girl enquired, 'how some rocks give out a constant vibrant hum?'

'No, I can't say I have' he answered with surprise. Then more openly, 'But I know what you mean. In stone-circles, for instance... I've felt a sense of rhythm and presence sometimes.'

They sat and ate, watching the clouds breaking the skyline from the west, shining, streaming, glistening in the blue.

'And where does a King fit into all this rhythm?' she asked, at length.

'In the modern world, you mean?' She nodded. 'As a focal point for people's aspirations and their dreams?'

'Like Charlie, then?'

'Yes.' He frowned, aside, and added with a sudden gloom 'But I think perhaps I've thrown it all away.'

'That's other people's problem' she said protectively. 'Let them decide things if they want. As Andrew said, you can only be true to your own best self.'

'And what is that?'

There was a long pause. Then Roberta smiled at him, the sun in her eyes.

'I think,' she said, 'your deepest self is not tied up with individuals at all, however dear. I think your best and deepest self is joined to the Other World in all its beauty. The true desires of your heart are all met there. I think you knew it long ago and now, perhaps, you must renew your vows.'

She grabbed his arm with feeling.

'Don't grow old, Wiggy. Recover your youth!'

He looked at her, struck by their shared knowledge, and common feeling.

'And you?' he answered. 'What will become of you I wonder? What will you do when you grow up?'

She laughed.

'I will try not to grow up,' she sniffed, 'if it means being like most grown-ups, cut off from joy and feelings and themselves...' Her eyes were deep and full of dreamy wonder... 'but you, you're different, Wiggy...'

He looked pleased, surprised.

'Why?' he asked.

'Well, I can love you Wiggy...' she said with admiration.

'I hope not... I've had enough of that...'

She knelt before him, face-to-face.

'No, Wiggy, I do. I love you. I'm attracted to you as a person, you see.'

'You can't. It's wrong.' He drew away.

'Don't be silly, Wiggy! Of course it's not. I didn't mean like - you know. Not like that. You're far too old and fuddy-duddy.'

The man seemed almost hurt by the disparagement.

'You make me sound like ninety!' he complained.

'At least' she giggled wildly.

Then quietly, more mature, she carried on.

'But I do' she murmured, holding his child-like face between her palms. 'I love you, Wiggy, for who you are.'

He felt the touch of her hands, soft, on his face; and stared back, innocent, open-eyed. She was beautiful, guiltless, true.

'I'm glad somebody does' he laughed aside.

Her eyes were soft and aflame, and she seemed so loose in her happiness and freedom... like a pure and savage woman before corruption.

Suddenly, she jumped up to her feet.

'Come on, Wiggy! Shift your bum!' she called, and leapt away.

'Yeeee!' she shouted to the wild.

The others came up into sight, and they laboured onwards in gradual ascent, in the great stillness and peace of the settled hillside. The climb from there was arduous, toiling across the steep scree slope toward the serrated skyline; clambering over broken rocks, round mighty chock-stones and up onto the ridge.

'A chaste wilderness' Wiggy thought, looking back on Coire Uisge. 'How it would all be cheapened, if it was ever opened up to the rude incursions of day-trippers and over-easy access.'

The girl was advancing up the final slopes, and he turned and looked at her, moving toward the edge with such a flow of feeling and delight : the wild surprised delight of unspoilt innocence.

'A chaste wilderness' he thought. 'It should always be so. Perhaps the chaste wilderness, the beautiful land, persisted within ourselves as well, and others : a beautiful and noble land within each person - an intact kingdom, vast and serene... and though we disappoint or are hurt ourselves... though we fail again and again and again... though all the glory seems departed... yet the land remains there, chaste and beautiful.'

The wind revelled and raced in the heather below. Sunlight was sparkling still on the distant burns.

'A chaste wilderness behind each person' Wiggy imagined. 'Our real selves, looming for ever behind all passing moods... if only we acknowledge it, believe in ourselves, and like ourselves... then we can always start again. Perhaps that's what the rabbi meant when he said : The Kingdom of Heaven is within you. Not original sin, but original beauty and splendour and love. Don't grow old, the girl had said, recover your youth. Perhaps it applied to us all and society too : the recovery of original youth, and beauty, and simple joy.'

He looked in front, where Roberta was rising boldly out of the depths, unspoilt and wild - and with a lighter step he followed the far-away girl.

* * *