"I shall have to put her in, if the book's to be written," said he.
By and by we came to the lake, or, rather, far above it; and Sir S. stopped the car to let us get out and look down. The water was a clear green with glints of purple, as if beds of heather grew underneath. There were jagged, bare rocks, and rocks whose shoulders were half covered as if with torn coats of faded brocade, dim silver of lichen, and pale pink of wild flowers. I hoped that Sir S. might join me for a look at the heather moon lying deep in the lake like a broken bracelet, but he didn't come. He looked at me very kindly from a distance, not coldly, yet not warmly, and he stayed with Mrs. West.
It was Basil who told me about Robert Bruce and his men hiding here, and rolling huge stones on the heads of the English soldiers who marched along the bank of the lake in search of the "outlaws." It seemed as if nothing terrible could have happened in so sweet a wilderness; but that was not the only horror. There were other wild deeds in history, and in the story of the "Raiders," memories of hunts for Covenanters, and great killings. But now all is peace, and I should have thought Loch Trool forgotten by the world if, in a dell of birch, rowan, hazel trees, and great pines like green umbrellas, I had not spied a roof.
Sir S. said it was the roof of Lord Galloway's shooting-lodge, loved by its owner because it was "out of tourist zone." So much the worse for tourists! So much the better for Lord Galloway!
I should hate to think of the road to Loch Trool smoking with motor dust. Of course our own Gray Dragon's pure dust is a different matter!
As we ran out of Crockett land into Ayrshire we came into Wallace land; for every foot of Scotland is taken up twice over by something or somebody wonderful. There isn't an inch left for new history-makers. If we could see those "emanations" Sir S. talks of—those ghost pictures—as far as the eye could reach we should see men marching, splendid men and women, too, who have made the world shine with their deeds, processions coming from every direction, out of the dim beginning of things up to the present day.
After the wildness of Loch Trool we had a country of plenteousness and peace. Basil said it was like a Surrey set down by the sea, so I suppose Surrey has big trees and flowery hedges and rolling downs, purple with heather. But surely no heather can be as purple as Scottish heather?
The sands of Girvan seemed to float like a golden scarf on the blue sea, and the town looked a romantic, mediæval place till we shot into it. Then we were disillusioned as to its age; but Ailsa Craig was noble in the distance, and a few members of the gull colony had flapped over to give town dwellers and visitors a sad serenade. "Gulls, golfers, and geologists all love Girvan," Basil said.
"Have you put that down in your notebook?" I inquired.
"Not in those words. But I jotted down something about this town in advance from authorities I've looked up. I generally keep two books going: one in which I put the things I want to see, and ideas for plots sometimes tangled up with a sort of diary; and another book of thoughts about places I have already seen—thoughts I can weave into a story in one way or another."