He was a man of gloomy mood, and often he would leave his guests
and take walks alone, musing and brooding. On several occasions I
followed him in secret, and found to my surprise that although he made
long detours in various directions, yet he always arrived at the same
spot at the same hour--five o'clock.
The place where he halted was on the edge of a dark wood on the brow of
a hill about three miles from Rannoch--a good place to get woodpigeon,
as they came to roost. It was fully two miles across the hills from the
high road to Moniaive, and from the break the gray wall where he was in
the habit of sitting to rest and smoke, there stretched the beautiful
panorama of Loch Urr and the heatherclad hills beyond.
Leithcourt never went direct to the place, but always so timed his walks
that he arrived just at five, and remained there smoking cigarettes
until half-past, as though awaiting the arrival of some person he
expected. Once or twice his guests suggested shooting pigeons at
sundown, but he always had some excuse for opposing the proposal, and
thus the party, unsuspecting the reason, were kept away from that
particular lonely spot.
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