“I fancy, don't you know,” said the Englishman slowly, “that it wasn't exactly THAT sort of thing, you know, for it's a good way from the border; but it was one of their raids upon their neighbors, to lift their cattle--steal 'em, in fact. That's the way those chaps had. But of course you've read all about that. You Americans, don't you know, are all up in these historical matters.” “Eh, but they were often reprisals,” said a Scotch passenger. “I don't suppose they took much trouble to inquire if the beasts belonged to an enemy,” said the Englishman. But here Miss Elsie spoke of castles generally, and averred that the dearest wish of her life was to see Macbeth's castle at Glamis, where Duncan was murdered. At which the Englishman, still deferentially, mistrusted the fact that the murder had been committed there, and thought that the castle to which Shakespeare probably referred, if he hadn't invented the murder, too, was farther north, at Cawdor. “You know,” he added playfully, “over there in America you've discovered that Shakespeare himself was an invention.” This led to some retaliating brilliancy from the young lady, and when the coach stopped at the next station their conversation had presumably become interesting enough to justify him in securing a seat nearer to her. The talk returning to ruins, Miss Elsie informed him that they were going to see some on Kelpie Island. The consul, from some instinctive impulse,--perhaps a recollection of Custer's peculiar methods, gave her a sign of warning. But the Englishman only lifted his eyebrows in a kind of half-humorous concern. “I don't think you'd like it, you know. It's a beastly place,--rocks and sea,--worse than this, and half the time you can't see the mainland, only a mile away. Really, you know, they oughtn't to have induced you to take tickets there--those excursion-ticket chaps. They're jolly frauds. It's no place for a stranger to go to.” “But there are the ruins of an old castle, the old seat of”--began the astonished Miss Elsie; but she was again stopped by a significant glance from the consul. “I believe there was something of the kind there once--something like your friends the cattle-stealers' castle over on that hillside,” returned the Englishman; “but the stones were taken by the fishermen for their cabins, and the walls were quite pulled down.” “How dared they do that?” said the young lady indignantly. “I call it not only sacrilege, but stealing.” “It was defrauding the owner of the property; they might as well take his money,” said Mrs. Kirkby, in languid protest. The smile which this outburst of proprietorial indignation brought to the face of the consul lingered with the Englishman's reply. “But it was only robbing the old robbers, don't you know, and they put their spoils to better use than their old masters did; certainly to more practical use than the owners do now, for the ruins are good for nothing.”