224 AN UNSUCCESSFUL STALK 



There are no scenes in Scotland more peaceful than the 

 green vales of south Ayrshire, the banks of bonny Doun, 

 and the richly wooded Girvan. The dwellings of those 

 who enacted the bloody deeds told in this long history 

 of violence are standing to this day, some still inhabited 

 by lairds of the old families ; others, roofless and storm- 

 beaten, have been deserted for roomier modern mansions. 

 The traveller may find himself wistfully musing on the 

 dulness of the reign of security, sighing for jingle of 

 plate-armour and bray of the trumpet to waken the 

 sleeping woodlands for gleam of steel and flutter of 

 pennons to brighten the brown hillside. Ifat, on second 

 thoughts, he will probably reflect how much pleasanter 

 it is, on the whole, that a country gentleman should be 

 able to move about at his pleasure, without a clump of 

 spears behind him and with no weightier defence than 

 a tweed suit ; and better for the tenants that they should 

 not be liable to be compelled to assist their landlords in 

 every enterprise, whether ' boden in ff'eir of war ' or 

 equipped conveniently for 'privat murther/ on pain of 

 forfeiture of all their goods, not to mention their lives, 

 as was the case with James Bannatyne. 



XXXII 



I am three thousand feet above the sea, seeking such 

 An unsuccess- repose after violent exertion as may be found 

 fui stalk on a sur f ace O f wet moss thickly strewn with 

 harsh stones, varying from the size of a cocoanut to that 

 of a writing-table. Slashing rain slants across this dreary 

 plateau, driven before a keen north-easter. The lines of 

 some eighteenth-century tourist in the Highlands keep 

 running in my head : 



