The other side of life, the amusements and games, were not nearly of so much importance, even with children, then as now. It was the object of his elders and masters rather to curb Rodie’s enthusiasm for football than to stimulate it, notwithstanding his high promise as a player; and the gentlemen who played golf were exceedingly impatient of laddies on the links; and as for girls presuming to show their faces there, would have shown their disapprobation very pointedly; so that, except for a few “holes” surreptitiously manufactured in a corner (even the Ladies’ Links being as yet non-existent), the youngsters found little opportunity of cultivating that now all-important game. They turned out, however, sometimes early, very early, of a morning, or late in the afternoon, and in their hurried performances, Elsie as yet was almost as good as her brother, and played up to him steadily, understanding his game, when they two of a summer evening, when all the club was at dinner, and nobody about to interfere, played together in a single. Lawn-tennis was still far in the future, and it had not been given to the children to do more than stand afar off and admire at the performance of the new game called croquet, which had just been set up by an exclusive society on the Castle Green. Who were the little Buchanans to aspire to take part in such an Olympian contest among the professors and their ladies? They looked on occasionally from a pinnacle of the ruins, and privately mocked between themselves at the stiffness of a great man’s learned joints, or the mincing ways of the ladies, sending confusing peals of laughter over the heads of the players at any mishap, till the indignant company used the rudest language in respect to the Buchanan bairns, along, it must be allowed, with the Beaton bairns and the Seaton bairns, and several more scions of the best families, and threatened to put them out of the Castle ruins altogether: though everybody knew this was a vain threat, and impossible to carry out. It was strictly forbidden that these young people should ever adventure themselves in a boat, the coast being so dangerous, a prohibition which Elsie did not resent, having distinguished herself as a very bad sailor, but against which Rodie kicked with all his might. The reader will therefore see that they were not encouraged to spend their strength in athletics, which is so much the custom now.