So pleasantly talking together in this fashion, speaking ever the kindliest things of the enemies of his house, and all the time making many excuses for them, Sir Thomas kept his palfrey at the amble. Presently we came to the castle of Greenan, which stands on a sea crag, and looks right bravely over the Bay of Ayr and down upon the little town thereof. It belongs to Kennedy of Balterson, a gossip and well-wisher of Culzean’s. ’Now,’ said my master, ’I must see if Balterson is at home. I think truly that he is, for there is a reek coming up very freely from the lum. Now John was ever a big eater and a long lier abed in the mornings. What a pleasantry if I should raise him from between the blankets! It would be a great cast-up all the days of his life.’ So we lighted down in front of the castle yett. I tied the horses together, and walked about the cliff edge, looking out to sea and over the sands of Ayr, thinking of many things. Mostly my thoughts ran on the treasure of Kelwood, and whether I should ever win it. Of Nell, too, and what she meant by patting me on the cheek when we met my mother, of the Tutor’s words to my father that one day I should have a handle to my name and a down-sitting as good as any. Plenty of pleasant things I had to think about that caller morn in May, as indeed a young man of spirit ought to have. And it was not very long before Sir Thomas came forth arm in arm with John Kennedy of Balterson, a grave and portentous man of heavy figure, richly arrayed, more like the provost of a town than a country laird. And these two paced up and down the narrow terrace walk of Greenan Castle, turning and returning, wheeling and countering as on the quarterdeck of a ship. But of the matter of their discourse I know nothing, though I guessed it to have been concerning the making up of peace between the feudal enemies in the lands of Carrick and Kyle. It was near to ten of the clock, and already close upon the time which had been appointed for the tryst with Auchendrayne, that we mounted at the yett of Greenan to ride on our way to Holmestone Ford. ’Sorry am I,’ said my master, ’that I have not spoken a word with John Mure ere I go. But I know his loving desire for my success, and he well knows my affection for him.’ We rode down from the castle crag of Greenan, and presently came out upon the links. These are here all sandy, cast up into rounded mounds and hills, and bitten into by the little pits and dungeons, called of them that play at the golf, ’bunkers.’