And he minded the rolling drummle of names of those hill-hidden touns through the parks of which he’d searched out the flints—Muir of Germany, Jacksbank, Tannachie, Arnamuck, Bogjorgan, Droop Hill, Dillavaird, Goose-craves, Pittengardener, Cushnie, Monboddo—he could run the list for a hundred more, queer he’d never before seen those names for the real things they were, the lives and desirings of many men, memories of their hopes and possessions and prides though their own names and dates had vanished forever. And he thought of Trease saying that he and the rest of the Reds were nothing, they just worked the will of history and passed…. And suddenly Ewan’s mind trembled on the verge of something, something that he couldn’t name, maybe God, that made this strange play with lives and beliefs: and it seemed a moment that the shambling bus was the chariot of Time let loose on the world roaring down long fir-darkened haughs of history into the shining ways of tomorrow.

They came into Auchinblae, clatter and showd, the mountains near now, and Ewan looked out. Ellen had the tickets: where were they going?

Ellen said she’d taken tickets for Glen Dye but they needn’t go there if he’d rather not. And Ewan looked at her shoes and then at his own and said Let’s get out and climb Drumtochty and then go over to Finella.

Down in the Strath an hour or so later they came into the road through the Garrold Wood, dark the pines, here the sun was lost. Ewan had taken one of the rucksacks and asked again what she’d brought them for? And Ellen had smiled a secret smile at the road—Oh, for fun!—slim, like a boy, not feeling like one, and stared up through the woods at the heights of Drumtochty towering far in the April air, dark at this time of the year, the sky behind waiting and watching with a fleece of clouds like an old woman’s cap. Ewan looked up when she pointed that out, he said that that was Finella’s mutch, had she never heard of Finella?

And they sat and talked on a little bridge, the water below spun coolly and softly down to the hidden Luther water, and he told her the tale of the Lady Finella and the old-time wars in the Howe of the Mearns. And Ellen, sleek head uncovered to the sun, listened and asked were those the Covenanting Times? Ewan said Oh no, they had come long after, funny chaps the Covenanters, he always had liked them—the advance guard of the common folk of those days, their God and their Covenant just formulae they hid the social rebellion in. They had fought up here in the 1640’s and away in Dunnottar Castle the gentry had imprisoned and killed them in scores…. And his face grew dark, no boy’s face: There’s nothing new under the sun—not even torture.

She said gently Ewan, what did they do to you?

He didn’t change colour or alter at all, just turned and looked at her and began to speak, low and steady, she whispered in a minute Ewan, oh my dear! and then felt sick, knew she’d faint, gripped herself not to, and felt sick again, she’d fail him completely if she were that. So he went on and finished; in the silence that followed they heard the whisper of the Luther hushaweesh in the reeds and far away in the listening trees—long and contented—the croon of a dove, terrible in its soft and sleepy content.