Gently North-West Read Online Free

‘You can’t judge it on the basis of one Scotch high tea.’
    ‘What’s wrong with Scotch high teas at every meal,’ Brenda said. ‘Why not always eat food? They seem to thrive on it up here.’
    Gently said: ‘How about a stroll to help the one Scotch high tea settle?’
    ‘And a dram at the local,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Who knows what the Scots drink among themselves?’
    Though it was 9 p.m., the strangely suspended Highland evening was still brilliant in the glen, with sun pouring over the mountains to the west to flood the tops of those to the east. The glen was perhaps fifteen miles long and in the shape of a flattened
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, so that its steep sides, shaggy with conifers, appeared to fold in on each other in both directions. A broad river flowed through it to join the loch at the southern end, and formed the strath, or alluvial flats, by which the village was built. The strath was meadowland. To the west of the road, where the only buildings were a shop and a garage, extended flowery meadows, intersected by the river, to the edge of the forest that fledged the braes. The houses facing these on the east had doubtless been sited for firm foundation. They made a line of brick and whitewashed fronts separated from the road by rough stone paving. The largest building, the Bonnie Strathtudlem, was late Victorian stone-quoined brick; and few of the other dwellings, with their slate or sheet-iron roofs, seemed likely to post-date it. Directly opposite the village the Hill of the Fairies lifted its blunt peak of grey, rose-tinted rock, and established a separate identity from the braes with a treeless blaze of broken crag.
    The two men and two women loitered down the road towards the inn. The satiety of travel had left them now and they felt buoyed and absorbed by the scene about them. The air was soft yet exhilarating and miraculously clear, allowing minute detail of the sunlit tops and ten thousand trees to show vividly. It carried a faint odour of wild chervil, which here still flowered in the meadows, and in its hush one could hear the murmuring of the river from behind a screen of ash and alder.
    As they neared the Bonnie Strathtudlem they became aware of other sounds.
    ‘The devils, they’re having a Gaelic hop!’ Geoffrey exclaimed. ‘Listen, that lad with the accordion is no fool.’
    ‘Ought we to go in there, Geoff?’ Bridget asked. ‘It’s probably a private affair. We should look foolish if they asked us to make a set in a strathspey.’
    ‘Oh nonsense,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Probably do us good after a day in the car. Anyway, I’m game – what do you say, George?’
    Gently laughed. ‘I could probably tap my feet a little,’ he said. ‘But I’d sooner stroll down that lane and take a look at the river.’
    So they passed the Bonnie Strathtudlem, before which a dozen cars were parked, and turned left to a narrow stone bridge which carried a minor road across the river. The river was fast-running and transparent, and made deep pools near the bridge. Staring into the pools it seemed imposible one should miss seeing a salmon or a monster trout. There the water appeared so still, while a yard away it was rushing and white; and under the bridge it positively thundered as it swooped down some concealed declivity.
    ‘The fishing’s free,’ Geoffrey said, in the indifferent tone of a non-angler. ‘You can hire rods at the inn, Maclaren says. Plenty of trout, or whatever you go for.’
    ‘Trout will do,’ Gently said.
    ‘Well, it’s apparently a good spot. Maclaren comes up here for the fishing, that’s why he keeps the cottage on.’
    ‘My respects to Maclaren,’ Gently said. ‘I begin to admire that man very much.’
    The midges buzzed and brushed at their faces, and Geoffrey turned again towards the Bonnie Strathtudlem. The siren strain of the Bluebell Polka was now sounding from that direction. But Gently, casting an eye up the road, had spotted the gate mentioned by Mrs McFie, and wanted at