Moreton's Kingdom by Jean S. Macleod Read Free Book Online Page A

he was asleep again and she was forced to make another decision—whether to go on or spend the night at Tarbet. Sandy was tired and so was she, but at least Sandy was able to sleep. She pressed on, reaching Ardlui as the sun dipped towards the western mountains and going into Glen Falloch in search of a suitable resting place for the night.
    She had travelled that way before, but she had completely forgotten about its loneliness and the lack of amenities among some of Scotland’s grandest mountains. The Trossachs had been her vague destination, but now she was to the west of them with the great bens and lochs of the Highlands ahead of her.
    To go on, or veer to the west towards Oban and the Isles?
    The car made her decision for her. The engine noise of which she had been vaguely aware since Ardlui became more pronounced, reaching a grinding crescendo as she pulled into the next passing-bay.
    Sandy slept on in blissful ignorance of their plight, undisturbed by the fact that the soporific motion of the car had ceased, and Katherine decided not to waken him even to offer him one of the left-over sandwiches from their alfresco lunch.
    Lifting the bonnet, she gazed at the engine, realising how little she knew about the mechanics of her hitherto reliable mode of travel, and finally coming to the conclusion that she was in need of professional help. Looking about her, she was quickly aware that she could not have been stranded in a more lonely place. She was well into the glen surrounded on every side by formidable mountains rearing their heads against the paling blue of the northern sky as they crowded the horizon, one above the other, rising over three thousand feet to the knees of Ben More. The great ben dominated everything, with Stob Binnein and Stob Garb and Cruach Ardrain crowding around the lesser giants of the Grampians to form a barrier to her further progress.
    The suggestion of their invincible might dismayed her for a moment until she forced herself to think back. A little way along the road she had passed a telephone kiosk. It could not be more than half a mile away and it was her only means of dealing with her present situation. In over an hour she hadn’t passed another car.
    Tucking the travelling rug more securely around her sleeping passenger, she locked the back door and set out, but when she reached the kiosk it was out of order—vandalised. Not here, she thought. Surely not in a place like this!
    The fact remained, however, that her one means of reaching the outside world had been denied her, and she hurried back to the lay-by. She had not passed one single vehicle in the time it had taken her to walk to the kiosk and run back.
    Breathless, she opened the car door. Sandy had gone.
    Seconds passed as she gazed incredulously at the empty back seat. Her travelling rug lay on the floor, the cushion which had cradled Sandy’s head tossed aside as if to suggest that he had no further use for it, yet nothing else had been disturbed. She searched the boot, but both her own suitcase and his little tartan grip were still there.
    ‘Sandy!’ she called in her desperation. ‘Where are you?’
    It was a cry from the heart, she realised, a plea which she really didn’t expect to be answered, and her mind seemed to go blank for a moment, but finally she told herself that a child of Sandy’s age would hardly wander away from the security of a parked car even if the sun was still shining and only the great shadow of the bens darkened the glen.
    She shivered as she looked about her at the stark beauty of the surrounding mountains which she would have appreciated so much under happier circumstances. There was no sound except for the gurgle of running water somewhere near at hand, nothing to suggest human habitation for the next few miles.
    She listened, tensed, for the sound of another car, but all was quietness and peace. Peace in nature, but not in her own heart, she thought, knowing a sudden, panic fear. She had done