Robertson was waiting at the hotel and I intended to waste no time in comparing notes with him. The evening chill was no myth, so I fetched an anorak from my room; I set out briskly up the narrow road in the soft gloom of the northern twilight. The village seemed deserted and nothing stirred at the quay below. Looking back, I could see a few lighted windows and trails of pale smoke from a scatter of chimneys. Out to sea, lying low over Lewis, stretched a line of ochreish cloud, but the rest of the sky was clear and pointed by stars of frosty brilliance. I paused at the bend. In truth it had an aspect of evil omen. The situation, the seclusion, the brutality of the rocks, they formed a setting in which violence seemed implicit. There is something of the sort in all mountain passes: perhaps many have been the scene of treachery and murder: I have always had a feeling in Glencoe that had no massacre occurred there then a massacre would still be to come: and I sensed this now in the ravine at Kyleness: it had had tragedy in it, waiting to happen.
