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Updated: June 13, 2025
It might take some doing, for the police who had been active in Morvern might be still on the track, and it was essential that I should keep out of trouble and give no hint to Gresson and his friends that I had been so far north. However, that was for Amos to advise me on, and about noon I picked up my waterproof with its bursting pockets and set off on a long detour up the coast.
He had some errand, which Gresson knew about, and he was in a hurry to perform it. It was clearly my job to get after him. I had a rotten afternoon. The fellow covered the moorland miles like a deer, and under the hot August sun I toiled on his trail.
But it's a wearing job and I've better things to think about. 'So? Well, enjoy yourself your own way. I'll be sorry when you leave us, for I owe you something for that rough-house, and beside there's darned little company in the old moss-back captain. That evening Gresson and I swopped yarns after supper to the accompaniment of the 'Ma Goad! and 'Is't possible? of captain and mate.
It took us four days to crawl up that coast and make Oban, for we seemed to be a floating general store for every hamlet in those parts. Gresson made himself very pleasant, as if he wanted to atone for nearly doing me in. We played some poker, and I read the little books I had got in Colonsay, and then rigged up a fishing-line, and caught saithe and lythe and an occasional big haddock.
The only answer was a hook-hit which I just managed to guard, followed by a mighty drive with his right which I dodged so that he barked his knuckles on the wall. I heard a yell of rage, and observed that Gresson seemed to have kicked his assailant on the shin. I began to long for the police. Then there was that swaying of the crowd which betokens the approach of the forces of law and order.
For of course Ivery had played with me, played with me since the first day at Biggleswick. He had applauded my speeches and flattered me, and advised me to go to the Clyde, laughing at me all the time. Gresson, too, had known. Now I saw it all. He had tried to drown me between Colonsay and Mull. It was Gresson who had set the police on me in Morvern.
Gresson had only waited to get his job finished; he could probably twist the old captain any way he wanted. The second was that at the door of a village smithy I saw the back of the Portuguese Jew. He was talking Gaelic this time good Gaelic it sounded, and in that knot of idlers he would have passed for the ordinariest kind of gillie.
The man was very discreet but very mysterious, and he would disappear for a week at a time, leaving no trace. For some unknown reason he couldn't explain why Blenkiron had arrived at the conclusion that Gresson was in touch with Ivery, so he made experiments to prove it. 'I wanted various cross-bearings to make certain, and I got them the night before last.
The watercress took so kindly to the soil that it had now covered the river to its mouth, and the Colonial Government were put to very considerable annual expense to remove it. As I have already stated, we had been provided with introductions to some of the most influential families in Christchurch namely, the Bishop, the Chief Justice Gresson, and some others.
The captain was discouraging. 'Ye'll get your bellyful o' Hieland hills, Mr Brand, afore ye win round the loch head. Ye'll be wishin' yerself back on the Tobermory. But Gresson speeded me joyfully on my way, and said he wished he were coming with me. He even accompanied me the first hundred yards, and waved his hat after me till I was round the turn of the road.
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