AN ANCIENT GAME
I
Somewhere on the east coast of Scotland lie the famous Links of Eric. The district has not changed much, to all seeming, during the last thousand years—or ten thousand, for that matter. Then, as now, the links were a sandy waste, a wilderness of whin, sand, and bent, the home of countless scuttling rabbits and plaintive peewits. Later, perhaps, when William the Conqueror was creating a disturbance in the southern parts of remote England, a tiny fishing town began to grow up round the little harbour reluctantly yielded by the tall red cliffs to the eternal industry of the ocean, and the adjoining strip of low-lying sand-dunes acquired the title that it now bears, derived, it is said, from the name of the Norse king who once landed on this, the only piece of accessible sh
