At intervals, just as in the military zone in France, sentries stopped us and took the number of our car; but this time sentries who were guarding a navy’s rather than an army’s secrets.  With darkness we passed the light of an occasional inn, while cottage lights made a scattered sprinkling among the dim masses of the hills.  A man might have been puzzled as to where all the kilted Highland soldiers whom he had seen at the front came from, if he had not known that the canny Highlanders enlist Lowlanders in kilty regiments.

The Frenchmen of our party—­M.  Stephen Pichon, former Foreign Minister, M. Rene Bazin, of the Academie Francaise, M. Joseph Reinach, of the Figaro, M. Pierre Mille, of Le Temps, and M. Henri Ponsot—­who had never been in Scotland before, were on the look out for a civilian Scots in kilts and were grievously disappointed not to find a single one.

This night ride convinced me that however many Germans might be moving about in England under the guise of cockney or of Lancashire dialects in quest of information, none has any chance in Scotland.  He could never get the burr, I am sure, unless born in Scotland; and if he were, once he had it the triumph ought to make him a Scotsman at heart.

The officer of the Royal Navy who was in the car with me confessed to less faith in his symbol of authority than in the generations’ bred burr of our chauffeur to carry conviction of our genuineness; so arguments were left to him and successfully, including two or three with Scotch cattle, which seemed to be co-operating with the sentries to block the road.

After an hour’s run inland, as the car rose over a ridge and descended on a sharp grade, in the distance under the moonlight we saw the floor of the sea again, melting into opaqueness, with curving fringes of foam along the irregular shore cut by the indentations of the firths.  Now the sentries were more frequent and more particular.  Our single light gave dim form to the figures of sailors, soldiers, and boy scouts on patrol.

“They have done remarkably well, these boys!” said the officer.  “Our fears that, boy like, they would see all kinds of things which didn’t exist were quite needless.  The work has taught them a sense of responsibility which will remain with them after the war, when their experience will be a precious memory.  They realize that it isn’t play, but a serious business, and act accordingly.”

With all the houses and the countryside dark, the rays of our lamp seemed an invading comet to the men who held up lanterns with red twinkles of warning.

“The patrol boats have complained about your lights, sir!” said one obdurate sentry.

We looked out into the black wall in the direction of the sea and could see no sign of a patrol boat.  How had it been able to inform this lone sentry of that flying ray which disclosed the line of a coastal road to anyone at sea?  He would not accept the best argumentative burr that our chauffeur could produce as sufficient explanation or guarantee.  Most Scottish of Scots in physiognomy and shrewd matter-of-factness, as revealed in the glare of the lantern, he might have been on watch in the Highland fastnesses in Prince Charlie’s time.