Still the Captain refused to be discouraged. His nobility of character would not permit him to disown the memory of his great-grandmother, although he thought it terribly sad she should have sunk so low. If she, during recurring fits of temporary insanity, had disgraced the great name, he had added lustre to it. If the former country residence of Sir Francis Drake had fallen into a ruinous condition, it should be his privilege to restore it with a few magic touches of the pen. He resolved to devote the remaining years of his life to the writing of _A History of the Parish of Highfield_. "The vicar was not altogether mistaken, my love," he remarked to Mrs. Drake. "He associates the name of Black Anchor with a hermit who wore a dark coloured vestment of some description, and no doubt he is right. My unfortunate great-grandmother did live there entirely alone, and would naturally be regarded as a hermit by the superstitious people of this parish. And we need not be surprised to discover that she always wore black--silk or velvet, I presume--the last poor remnants of her former greatness. It is an established fact, I believe, that elderly ladies generally wear black." As a compiler of history the Captain was in many ways well equipped. He wrote rapidly, which was of great importance, because the least relevant chapter in the life of a parish required a vast number of words. He possessed a gift of making the past real because he owned a powerful imagination. While confidence in his own abilities freed him from a slavish adherence to facts which could serve no useful purpose. Realising the importance of concentrating upon some particular feature, in order that the narrative might be made continuous, he had not the slightest difficulty in selecting that feature. The keynote of the entire work was sounded by the opening sentence: "Although the Parish of Highfield is but little known to Englishmen, and occupies an extremely small portion of the map, being entirely excluded from the standard Atlas used in schools--in our opinion unjustifiably--it must nevertheless remain for ever famous on account of its associations with the sublime name of Drake."