Part XIV.
The Queen'S Earrings.

It is at a point a little north of where the wriggly black lines—which, on the map, represent the Main Trunk railway—cross the 40th degree of latitude that the Queen's Earrings may be found.

They lie in a wooden casket beneath the hearthstone of a farmhouse on the eastern slope of a fertile valley. The casket which is of Maori origin dates from about 1850, but the earrings, two exquisite fire-opals set in whorls of beaten gold are much older than that, for their story goes back to a day in May, 1568.

On that day Mary, Queen of Scots, her army in rout, fled from the battle of Langside, and came, hotly pursued, to the home of the Lenzies of Glenmayne. The gates were flung wide to her, but even as she drew herself from her horse the figures of the Regent's men appeared over the brow of the hill. Malcolm Lenzie, who was then laird of Glenmayne, drew her inside the gate, and, seizing the cloak from her shoulders and the cap from her head, himself leaped upon her horse, and shouting for her companions to follow him, led the pursuit far afield, and eluded them by hiding in a cavern in the glen.

Lenzie returned by himself, and the Queen, fed, rested, and mounted upon a fresh horse, escaped by another road to Dumfries. In token of her gratitude she presented Malcolm Lenzie with a pair of earrings and promised that when she returned to Scotland great wealth and power should be his.

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