“When we reached the Castle, the male and female members of the party were torn apart, and both were dragged off to separate noisome dungeons. Girls and boys, you may well ask if you are listening to a tale of something that happened during the Wars of the Roses. But you are not. On the evening of yesterday week, August 12th, in this twentieth century of ours, sixteen members of the N.U.H. were incarcerated in dungeons by a kilted Fascist bully. (A storm of boohs, hisses and catcalls.) You are shocked. You may well be shocked. But let me continue. Apparently the wife of this Highland gentleman (boohs), the wife, I say, was touched by the plight of those unfortunate girls, some of whose experiences in the dungeon you will presently hear from the lips of Miss Winifred Gosnay, and Mrs MacDonald caused them to be released by the hands of the private chaplain. I do not wish to say a word which can offend the religious susceptibilities of anybody present, but I must declare that a clergyman who accepts the employment of a man like this MacDonald of Ben Nevis degrades his cloth. Beside such a man the turbulent priests of the Middle Ages like Friar Tuck and Thomas a Becket were orderly Godfearing members of society. Not only did Mrs MacDonald cause the girls to be released, but she also provided them with cold supper. I wish to say all that can be said for the other side; I am no atrocity-monger. Meanwhile, the chaplain and the head-keeper, a bearded giant of a man and the creature of MacDonald, proceeded to release the men of the party, who were incarcerated in a kind of underground bowl. But we were ready for them, yes, we were ready for them, and in a trice it was they who were the prisoners and we who were the freemen.

“Well, to cut the story short, we joined up with the girls and forced our way into the castle lounge where MacDonald and his guests were carousing together. There Tom Camidge and I warned him that he had not heard the last of the matter. I was about to expatiate further on the power of our great Union when MacDonald’s pipers sounded the charge and we were driven out of the Castle by his hireling bullies and braves armed with axes. After that we tramped back to our camp and the next day we arrived at the Castle mustered in the courtyard, and challenged MacDonald to show himself. He did show himself from the safety of a window, and we hurled execrations at him.