Hatter's Castle

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THE spring of 1879 was unusually forward and open. Over the Lowlands the green of early corn spread smoothly, the chestnut spears burst in April, and the hawthorn hedges flanking the white roads which laced the countryside blossomed a month before time. In the inland villages farmers exulted cautiously and children ran barefooted after watering carts; in the towns which flanked the wide river the clangour of the shipyards lost its insistence and, droning

through the mild air, mounted to the foothills behind, where the hum of a precocious bee mingled with it and the exuberant bleating of lambs overcame it; in the city, clerks shed their coals for coolness and lolled in offices, execrating the sultry weather, the policy of Lord Beaconsfield, the news of the Zulu War, and the high cost of beer.

Thus, over the whole estuary of the Clyde, from Glasgow to Portdoran, upon Overton, Darroch, Ardfillan those towns which, lying between the Winton and Doran hills, formed the three cardinal points of the fertile triangle upon the right bank of the firth over the ancient Borough of Levenford, which stood bisecting exactly the base line of this triangle at the point where Leven entered Clyde, over all lay the radiance of a dazzling sun and, lapped in this strange benignant heat, the people worked, idled, gossiped, grumbled, cheated, prayed, loved, and lived.

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