nest today, perfectly lovely, two eggs, and I didnât bring a camera. Didnât think weâd need two, and mineâs not nearly as good as yours, even if I could take half as good a picture.â
âAnd you donât call that over-persuading? Iâll be there,â said my brother. âExpect me on Mondayâs ferry, then. If I know anything about it, Iâll be well and truly mobile by then.â
âPhysician, heal thyself,â I said, laughing, and rang off, with a lightened heart.
8
Next morning was fair and sunny, with a breeze, but I journeyed duly into outer space, to tackle the problems of my party on Terra Secunda. Their difficulties were rapidly threatening to become too much for them, and consequently for me, too. In those circumstances I have always found it wise to abandon effort and leave the subconscious mind to sort things out while the conscious mind does something quite different. Goes for a walk, for example, and takes a look at the Hamilton house and that delectable stretch of milk-white sand bordering the machair.
I followed the cliff path which led steeply up out of Ottersâ Bay and then westward over the headland for something less than half a mile, to bring me in sight of the bay I had seen yesterday. Just inland from this, against its background of sheltering trees, stood the house.
A high dry-stone wall enclosed the land round it for some four or five acres, and inside this enclosure were more trees, oak and fir and beech above the massed colours of rhododendrons in flower, with one big horse-chestnut in full bloom holding its creamy candelabra out across the wall. A stone archway in the seaward wall spanned a tall ironwork gate.
Straight across from the house lay the broch islet. Now, with the tide low, the causeway connecting the islet with Moilaâs mainland was high and dry, running across at the narrowest point of the channel. It consisted of natural slabs of flattish stone which at some time in the past had been levelled by wedges, and âhelpedâ in places by concrete, to form a crossing-place. But time and tide and neglect had eaten away at the structure so that even at low tide, with the slabs fully exposed, crossing would be tricky.
To either side of this causeway was a tumble of half-exposed rocks, glossy with black seaweed, where the water rose and fell, barely stirring the weed. Apart from this crossing-point the channel seemed, even at this stage of the tide, to be fairly deep. Deep enough, at any rate, for a boat to get in to the boathouse which was tucked in under the cliff at the southern end of the bay, below the path where I stood. Beside the boathouse a jetty thrust out into the water, and from this a weedy, once-gravelled path led along above the beach to the stone archway which was the garden gate of Taigh na Tuir.
I made my way down into the bay. That alone would have been worth the scramble round the cliff path. I had never seen anything like it before, a crescent of dazzling white, where a million pearly shells had been pounded and smashed by the Atlantic swells into fine sand, marked only by the tides, and above the tide-marks by the myriad criss-crossing prints of seabirds.
It was not to be resisted. I sat down and took off my shoes and socks â I was wearing slacks and trainers â and then walked across the bay, luxuriating in the feel of the fine warm sand under my bare feet. I went right down to the seaâs edge, but the water was too cold for pleasure, so I retreated to the dry level and sat down to brush the sand off my feet and put on my shoes again.
This done, I stood for a moment looking across at the broch islet. Directly across the channel was another, bigger bay, a long curving stretch of lovely white sand, with above it a sweep of green turf and bracken rising as far as the dark circle of the broch. The whole place was alive with the wings and calls of seabirds. It was very tempting, but it would
âAnd you donât call that over-persuading? Iâll be there,â said my brother. âExpect me on Mondayâs ferry, then. If I know anything about it, Iâll be well and truly mobile by then.â
âPhysician, heal thyself,â I said, laughing, and rang off, with a lightened heart.
8
Next morning was fair and sunny, with a breeze, but I journeyed duly into outer space, to tackle the problems of my party on Terra Secunda. Their difficulties were rapidly threatening to become too much for them, and consequently for me, too. In those circumstances I have always found it wise to abandon effort and leave the subconscious mind to sort things out while the conscious mind does something quite different. Goes for a walk, for example, and takes a look at the Hamilton house and that delectable stretch of milk-white sand bordering the machair.
I followed the cliff path which led steeply up out of Ottersâ Bay and then westward over the headland for something less than half a mile, to bring me in sight of the bay I had seen yesterday. Just inland from this, against its background of sheltering trees, stood the house.
A high dry-stone wall enclosed the land round it for some four or five acres, and inside this enclosure were more trees, oak and fir and beech above the massed colours of rhododendrons in flower, with one big horse-chestnut in full bloom holding its creamy candelabra out across the wall. A stone archway in the seaward wall spanned a tall ironwork gate.
Straight across from the house lay the broch islet. Now, with the tide low, the causeway connecting the islet with Moilaâs mainland was high and dry, running across at the narrowest point of the channel. It consisted of natural slabs of flattish stone which at some time in the past had been levelled by wedges, and âhelpedâ in places by concrete, to form a crossing-place. But time and tide and neglect had eaten away at the structure so that even at low tide, with the slabs fully exposed, crossing would be tricky.
To either side of this causeway was a tumble of half-exposed rocks, glossy with black seaweed, where the water rose and fell, barely stirring the weed. Apart from this crossing-point the channel seemed, even at this stage of the tide, to be fairly deep. Deep enough, at any rate, for a boat to get in to the boathouse which was tucked in under the cliff at the southern end of the bay, below the path where I stood. Beside the boathouse a jetty thrust out into the water, and from this a weedy, once-gravelled path led along above the beach to the stone archway which was the garden gate of Taigh na Tuir.
I made my way down into the bay. That alone would have been worth the scramble round the cliff path. I had never seen anything like it before, a crescent of dazzling white, where a million pearly shells had been pounded and smashed by the Atlantic swells into fine sand, marked only by the tides, and above the tide-marks by the myriad criss-crossing prints of seabirds.
It was not to be resisted. I sat down and took off my shoes and socks â I was wearing slacks and trainers â and then walked across the bay, luxuriating in the feel of the fine warm sand under my bare feet. I went right down to the seaâs edge, but the water was too cold for pleasure, so I retreated to the dry level and sat down to brush the sand off my feet and put on my shoes again.
This done, I stood for a moment looking across at the broch islet. Directly across the channel was another, bigger bay, a long curving stretch of lovely white sand, with above it a sweep of green turf and bracken rising as far as the dark circle of the broch. The whole place was alive with the wings and calls of seabirds. It was very tempting, but it would
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