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for his supper.
    Nevertheless, he paused as he topped a ridge and, visited by a sudden sense of unease, stood perfectly still, his eyes searching the gloom. Although he could see nothing untoward, a sixth sense told him that something strange was happening.The towering peaks of the mountains, lit by the occasional flash, now loomed strangely menacing before him, no longer the familiar, everyday slopes that he knew. Indeed, he hardly recognized them, so unfriendly and threatening had they become. Moving towards a rocky bluff, he pressed himself against it and waited and watched apprehensively, suddenly afraid to venture further.
    An enormous rumble of thunder marked the birth of the stone giant as it tore itself in a welter of rocks, stones and crumbling clods of earth from the side of the mountain and took its first tentative steps.
    The crofter’s grey eyes sharpened, for his night vision was good. Something was moving on the far side of the glen. Then he saw it through a bank of swirling rain; a lumbering stone figure that stood the height of a house. Frozen with fear, he watched it walk, slowly and deliberately, with massive steps, towards the road that ran the length of the glen. Streaks of lightning illuminated the terrible figure for a brief moment before darkness fell and a sudden , dreadful, crashing roar of sound was masked by peals of thunder.
    Ten minutes later, he was wondering if he’d imagined the whole thing. The storm had gradually eased and the pale moonlight that now bathed the glen revealed nothing out of the ordinary; even the mountains, to his critical eye, looked much the same as usual. He shook himself and calling himself all sorts of a fool, made his way down to the road. It was there that he found the landslide ; a huge tumble of stone, rock and earth that had spilled over the tarmac and tumbled into theburn. Not only that, it had brought down his only link with the outside world. He lifted his eyes and scanned the scene. The entire line of telephone poles that marched the length of the valley now listed at a crazy angle and several were down — uprooted and splayed across the ground in a tangle of wire, rock and earth. He sighed. There would be work for him aplenty in the morning for the rubble that dammed the burn would have to be cleared. It was a raging torrent and its waters were already spreading over the rough pasture that fringed the foot of the mountains.
    His pace quickened as he neared his house for he could see that his sheep had gathered round it. Indeed, the bulk of his small flock seemed to have sought refuge inside his garden. They crowded round him, baa-ing in frantic welcome as he clambered over his flattened gate and, pushing them gently to one side, made his way up the path. What really worried him was that he had heard no sound from his dogs. He found them cowering in the far corner of their shed and his face creased anxiously as they crept towards him on their bellies, whining pitifully. He knew real fear when he saw it. “Come on, Bess,” he said, softly. “Come on, Tessa. You’re okay now.”
    The sheep, he reckoned as he hefted the gate up to act as a barricade, would be safe enough penned in the confines of the garden but, conscious of the fact that the telephone lines were down and that he had no contact with the outside world, he kept the two dogs in his bedroom that night and although he was loath to admit it, it was for his own comfort as much as theirs.

5. Glenmorven
    “It’s very good of you to offer, Helen,” Margaret Grant said, relief colouring her voice. “I know you wouldn’t have minded having Lewis to stay for a week but to take on the three of them is absolutely wonderful.”
    “Nonsense, Margaret,” Helen’s voice echoed down the telephone line. “Believe me,
you’re
doing
me
a favour! Shona’s growing up and although she loves the glen, she’s missing all her friends.” Helen’s voice sounded suddenly wistful. “I can understand it, you