Free Land of Heart's Desire by Catherine Airlie Page A

she asked, glancing at the gun and remembering that he had said he had put up the notice himself.
    “Yes,” he acknowledged. “I sacked the man I had. I found him incompetent, and he, apparently couldn’t agree with anyone around here. He had the wrong approach, I guess.”
    She had nothing to say to that and they walked on for a few seconds in silence. Now that they were drawing away from the cliff it was easier to recognize the wealth of the Ardtornish land. The lush grass was greener and richer than anything to be found north of the ford, and there were vast fields of it, where a fine herd of Ayrshire cattle grazed contentedly in the sun.
    Beyond, as they drew towards the southern end of the island, broad fields of oats and barley swayed gently in the breeze from the sea, a yellow, golden harvest of fair promise ready to be reaped before the winter set in.
    “Your factor must have been fairly knowledgeable about farming,” Christine pointed out as the first grey rooftops of Scoraig came into sight. “All this must have been planted before you came.”
    “He had my orders,” Finlay Sutherland answered briefly. “He also had a farm manager willing enough to carry them out. It was the personal contacts which rankled with me,” he confessed, “and the fact that he was spending more than half his time in a decrepit fishing-boat, hunting for sharks. When he was forced to stay on shore he was also helping to operate an illicit still.” he added with a grin which seemed to condone the offence and suggest that it might have been overlooked if that had been the worst of his agent’s misdemeanours.
    “I thought that sort of thing had been done away with long ago,” Christine smiled. “We are more or less law-abiding, even on Croma, you know.”
    “Quits!” he grinned. “I’m not going to argue about making whisky! You’re going to be fairly hungry by the time you get back to Erradale,” he suggested. “Why not let me offer you something to eat?”
    The grey towers of Ardtornish House were already visible through their screen of trees, beech mostly, in place of the more hardy pines and firs which sheltered Erradale from the buffeting of the north-east winds. The Ardtornish beeches were a wonderful sight, especially in autumn, forming a living, burnished archway for over a mile along the broad avenue to the house itself.
    Could she, Christine wondered, go and see them again? Could she go with this man by her side? Wouldn’t it be rather like disloyalty to Hamish and Rory and Jane to enter their old home as Finlay Sutherland’s guest?
    “I won’t try to keep you for any length of time,” he promised, “and we’ll have to go through the policies, anyway, to get to the shore. You see,” he added with a grin, “I’m already using all the right words!”
    In this present mood she felt that she could not snub him to any effect, and he had promised to get her back to Erradale in reasonable time so that her grandmother need not worry about her.
    “It’s—very kind of you,” she acknowledged hesitatingly as he flung open, a side gate into the grounds.
    “You don’t need to waver,” he assured her. “I have a most efficient housekeeper. She’s a native of the island, so I’m quite sure she will meet with your approval.”
    Iseabal Dalgleish was well known to Christine. She had served the Nicholsons as a young girl and, widowed now, had come back to serve Ardtornish’s new owner—without rancour, it seemed.
    “If you can wait a wee minute,” she suggested delightedly, smiling at Christine as if it were the most natural thing in the world to see her there, “I’ll soon set another place and put on a few more potatoes.”
    “Please don’t bother,” Christine begged as her host walked towards the gun-room. “A cup of tea will do very well, Mrs. Dalgleish.”
    “Tush, now, and that would be a poor sort of welcome to be offering you!” Iseabal objected. “Not that you would really be needing a