And when he found his way to the Deil's Den, a low stone tower
on a hill some six miles from Ardrochan, his favourite occupation was
that of robber baron. It would have been more proper to put the tower
to its old use of a lair of a Highland cateran; but, to his shame,
Tinker funked the dialect with which such a person must necessarily be
cursed.
The Deil's Den had earned its name in earlier centuries from the bloody
deeds of its first owners. No gillie would go within a mile of it,
even in bright sunshine. Tinker's carelessness of its ghosts, a
headless woman and a redheaded man with his throat cut, had won him the
deepest respect of the village, or rather hamlet, of Ardrochan. Twice
he had constrained himself to wait in the tower till dusk, in the hope
that his fearful, but inquiring, spirit would be gratified by the sight
of one or other of these psychic curiosities.
It was a two-storied building, and its stone seemed likely to last as
long as the hills from which it had been quarried. In some thought
that it might be used as a watch-tower by his keepers, Lord Crosland
had repaired its inside, and fitted it with a stout door and two
ladders, one running to the second story and another to the roof.
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