And the sun—was due a little quiet worship. So we wandered idly round the neighbouring country enjoying small personal adventures of no interest to anyone but ourselves. We got all our stores in Taynuilt. The milk was half cream. And there was amusement even in buying stores. For example, one day, when the sun had brought back our lost youth, the Crew got a sudden craving for a certain sort of liquorice she used to buy for a halfpenny. Hatless, wearing blue trousers and dark sun glasses, she looked so unlike a figure anxious for a halfpenny worth of liquorice that I challenged her to buy it.

She always accepts any challenge of that sort, so straightway entered a respectable shop in Taynuilt and said seriously, ‘I want a halfpenny worth of liquorice, please: the kind you tear off in strings.’

The man, who was not old, regarded her earnestly, anxious to serve but obviously at a loss.

She repeated her request. His face cleared intelligently. ‘Oh, I see,’ he said. ‘You want it for your bowels.’

There was a really splendid silence. Then I went out.

From a solitary excursion, she rarely came home without an odd encounter and a strange saying, some of them local and pithy, as of the old lady who remarked of certain individuals: ‘The trouble with them is that they have nothing to do but eat their bums out.’

Then word came that the Mate was held up a further three days.

‘We have never climbed Ben Cruachan, we have never hunted the cave in the Pass of Brander, and we have never gone up Loch Etive,’ said the Crew.

‘I was merely wondering’, I said mildly, ‘if we could manage the Gulf of Coirebhreacain.’

‘You know we can’t. And I have been reading all about the cave. Now listen. Here’s my synopsis. Are you listening?’

‘Yes. Where did you get it?’

‘Out of that book called Wallace, the Hero of Scotland, by Paterson. Will you listen?’

‘Is it long?’

‘Wallace’, the Crew began, ‘after the treachery and desperate retribution—it was terrible!—of the Barns of Ayr, had moved rapidly. He was resting at Dundaff when news reached him that Atholl, Buchan, Menteith and Lorn had risen against Argyll in the interest of Edward First of England. Neil Campbell of Lochow had defied Edward and stuck to his—my writing is not too good—’

‘Lands and heritages. Stout fellow!’

‘Heritage. That’s it! One Makfadyan, a low-born Irishman, had obtained a gift of Argyll and Lorn from Edward with the view of bringing the more inaccessible portion of Scotland under his control, and “false Jhon of Lorn”, having been made a lord in England, concurred.’

‘Wasn’t Edward a marvel! Talk of astuteness, political genius! And that touch of introducing a low-born Irishman—’

‘Duncan of Lorn, however, still struggled for the lands and joined Neil Campbell. They had against them therefore this Makfadyan, supported by four lordships, and by Makfadyan’s own considerable army supposed to have been brought out of Ireland. “Many of them”—to quote—“he had brought out of Ireland and with characteristic savagery, they spared neither women nor children . . . ”.’