IF it's true that every picture tells a story then The Illicit Still by Charles Cameron Baillie, currently gracing the wall of a country house in Kingussie, tells about as colourful a tale as you could possible imagine. It's all there . . . tragedy, romance, mystery and, providing her plans work out, high adventure in faraway places for its owner, Susan Paton.

It's a painting to which the 53-year-old widow has grown strangely attached over the years. But that attachment took a lot of growing. She first set eyes upon it in 1970 and it wasn't exactly love at first sight.

''I was only 21 and I was taking my Swiss boyfriend on a tour of Scotland. I thought it would be nice to go and see my father's close friend and business partner John MacLeod and his wife Betty, my honorary aunt and uncle, at their farm, near Aberfoyle,'' she recalls.

The MacLeods took the young couple out to dinner. Then, after returning home for a few drams, Uncle John announced he had something rather special to show her. ''He took us all up to the attic, sat us down on the floor, and showed us this painting,'' she says. He asked: ''Well, do you like it?'' The fact was that Susan, who was going through her hippie stage and was more interested in psychedelia than in pictures of pixies and pot stills, didn't like it at all. However, anxious not to hurt her uncle, she fibbed: ''Of course, I like it.''

A short silence ensued before he said: ''But do you really like it?'' Having dug herself into a hole, Susan had little choice but to keep on digging. She exclaimed: ''I think it's wonderful. In fact, it's fantastic!''

MacLeod, a Skye man, beamed. ''Then, since you like it that much, when you get a house of your own, you shall have it,'' he declared.

Susan and her boyfriend left the next day. For the next year, she thought little more about the painting. Then she moved into her first flat in the west end of Glasgow. True to his word, within days Uncle John turned up in his car, with a trailer attached. ''The funny thing was that I began to grow very, very attached to the painting. I think it was because, the more I looked at it, the more I began to know the elves. I started to think that I knew people who looked like them. There is definitely a tremendous charm about it,'' she says.

Over the years, the painting has fascinated, not just Susan, but her family and friends. Twelve years ago her father, George Christie, celebrated his 70th birthday by buying himself a distillery outside Kingussie from where he still produces two rather fine single malt whiskies, The Speyside and Drumguish.

Shortly before the distillery opened, Susan, by then married with two children, was approached by her brother Ricky, sales and marketing director for the new company, who asked her if he could use Baillie's painting as an illustration for the cover of their first brochure. She was happy to oblige.

The Illicit Still, which measures 4x61/2ft, has stayed with her for more than 30 years. When she and her husband, Samuel Paton, moved into their home near Kingussie 14 years ago, it took pride of place on the staircase, and it has been there ever since.

Were you to take a look around her home this week, you would discover that it is just about the only thing which remains in the house.

Sadly, Samuel died 10 years ago, aged 39. The couple's two children have flown the nest. Gay, 28, is married to Ian McCall, manager of Falkirk FC, but likely this week to take over at Dundee United, and Sam, 25, is in the army. So, Susan Paton is left to live a life of splendid isolation.

But not, it seems, for very much longer. The other weekend she held a clearance sale of all her worldly goods. The house now empty, Susan is scheduled to leave it by the end of this month. She may return. She may not. At an age when most of us would opt for a settled life, she is embarking on a nomadic lifestyle. ''I had to make a now-or-never choice,'' she explains. ''Either I stayed in this big house alone, vegetating, or I set off to travel the world.''

It was no contest. She has no idea how long she'll be away or where she'll end up. All she knows is that she's off at the end of the month.

''I'm planning to start my journey across the Atlantic. I thought I'd see as much of the Americas as I could. I'll be taking a boat trip from Vancouver to Alaska and then I'm going to see friends in Chile.

''Eventually, I'll try and settle somewhere. My only requirement is that it'll be a place with a room with a view and a loo. I'm 53 and, for the first time in my adult life, I don't have responsibilities,'' she explains.

There is, however, one small matter to be addressed: the painting. To help finance her odyssey, The Illicit Still must be sold, and thereby hangs another chapter of the tale. ''Uncle John and my father were whisky magnates, who made their fortune in the post-war boom years,'' explains Susan. Early in their career, the two men were persuaded to join a small group of businessmen who bought a Glasgow pub, the Roost Bar in Dumbarton Road, Partick. Charles Cameron Baillie was a regular and a man who liked a good whisky. The problem was that Baillie, who had hit hard times, ran up a massive bar bill which he couldn't pay off. So, he proposed to settle his account by painting The Illicit Still.

''The painting was started, but finishing it was quite another matter,'' says Susan. ''The bar tab was getting longer and longer and, eventually, a frustrated Uncle John took the painting, ready or not, and it hung over the bar, a constant reminder of the folly of extending credit.''

The pub venture was short-lived. MacLeod and Christie decided that their future lay in making whisky, but they took the painting with them and it hung in their boardroom in Alloa for a few years before Uncle John took it home.

Recently, Susan tried to find out more about the artist. She discovered Baillie was a commercial artist from Glasgow and that, between 1925 and 1931, he exhibited four portraits at the Glasgow Institute. In the 1930s he was commissioned to paint huge murals aboard the Clyde-built Cunard Queens, Mary and Elizabeth. By coincidence, Susan crossed the Atlantic with her parents on the Queen Mary in 1965, and she recalls being impressed by Baillie's murals in the dining room and state rooms.

The painter was artist-in-residence at the pre-war Empire Exhibition in Glasgow. He was also responsible for the art-deco interior decoration on the walls and glass of Glasgow's A-listed Rogano Restaurant (which can still be seen today).

The value of The Illicit Still is anyone's guess. Christie's in Glasgow had planned to place it in its sale of Scottish paintings at the end of this month. Due to an oversight, however, Susan failed to make the sale's deadline. Now she can either sell it at a sale in London early next year, or through a private Glasgow dealer in the near future.

She says: ''The difficulty is that Baillie is an artist who, although he has done stuff which should be well-known, is not a very well-known figure himself. What fascinates me is that he was part of Glasgow's

history, part of what made the city famous around the world. There is so very little known about Baillie and for that reason, it's virtually impossible to place a value on the painting.''

A spokesperson for Christie's in Glasgow confirmed that it was difficult to estimate the value. It would have to be assessed solely on its merit. ''A work like this doesn't come up for sale very often,'' she said. ''But the fairy-tale story which it carries is incredibly interesting.''

Leading Glasgow art dealer Roger Billcliffe, who is familiar with Baillie's work, has seen photographs of The Illicit Still and says that it is atypical of the artist. ''The other works I have seen have been figure studies in a much more art-deco style, beautiful small paintings. This one is certainly not the kind of Charles Baillie work that most people are familiar with. As for a price, I couldn't guess. It's such a kitsch subject, but someone will like it,'' he said.

As for Uncle John, Susan reckons that he wouldn't have been offended by her decision to sell the painting he gave her all those years ago. ''I think he'd have been pleased,'' she says with a smile.

artists who have TRADED their art to pay the bills

Picasso

''If only they would realise that above all an artist works of necessity,'' said Pablo Picasso, left. He paid his debts at a pub in Montmartre with paintings including At the Lapin Agile, which featured himself and landlord Frede.

Gauguin

During a stay at Pont Aven, Brittany, Paul Gauguin, right, frequented a cafe owned by Angelle and Frederic Satre. In return for credit, Gauguin painted Angelle's portrait. But the couple were so aghast by the end product that they refused to accept it.

Jean Antoine Watteau

Jean Antoine Watteau, who

suffered from consumption,

came to England in 1719 for treatment by the physician

Robert Mead. He is thought to have painted one of his most famous works, Italian Comedians (1720), in lieu of payment for Mead. He died the following year.

David Wilkie

Wilkie, right, painted a picture for his doctor, partly for looking after him and partly for allowing him to stay with his sister, Joanne.