, drinking confusion to her
enemies. No wonder little boy Crockett got absent-minded one day, when
he dropped his watch instead of a pebble in wanting to test the time the
stone would take to fall."

The next bit of Crockett-lore I heard was at Auchencairn in the deep,
indented bay we'd reached by turning south for the coast again. There,
it seemed, we were in the heart of Crockettland, for Hestan Island is
the Rathan Island of the "Raiders." All round was sweet, welcoming
country, low mountains and rippling meadows, where it seemed that the
Douglas soldiers had laid their glittering helmets down in long straight
ranks on a carpet of cloth o' gold. Over these fields of garnered wheat
came a breeze from the sea, with a tang of salt like a tonic mixture,
and there was a murmurous sound on the air, a message from the tide.

There were hundreds of historic things to see, in every direction, if we
had had time for all: traces of the Attecott Picts; Pict forts and
tombs, castles of the Middle Ages; robber caves; Convenanters'
monuments; and at Balcarry, near Auchencairn, the landing-place of the
smuggler Yawkins, who was Scott's "Dirk Hatteraick." But we had only
five days for everything before the Great Day--which will be coming so
soon now. From Auchencairn we turned inland to a rolling country where
the Gray Dragon would be down one hill and halfway up another before he
knew what had happened. At Dundrennan--"Hill of the Thorn Bushes"--he
had his first mishap; but after the surprise of thinking a bomb had
exploded, I was glad he'd seized just that opportunity of bursting a
tire, because it gave us more time for the Abbey than we should have
given ourselves.

While the chauffeur made the dragon's toilet, patching up a fat white
foot as he might have doctored the pad of an elephant, we wandered
about, and finally decided to lunch in a secluded corner of the
twelfth-century ruins.

Mrs. James and I set out our picnic-table, a folding thing that Sir S.
carries in the car, and we counted on having the place to ourselves.
Tourists though we are, we scorn other tourists. But it seems incredible
that such as they can scorn us. We talked about Queen Mary and of her
last meal within those walls, and it felt sacrilegious to laugh and joke
where she had been so sad. We pictured her, young and beautiful, taking
leave of the loyal men who had begged her in vain not to trust
Elizabeth; and we could fancy the town turning out to see h