​Transport changed significantly during Crockett's lifetime and this is reflected in his writing.  As I have written elsewhere, he was born in the age of the railways, with which he had strong family connections.
 
Yet he excels in showing us the slower pace of life.  In his youth he walked, and rode in carts. His characters roam the hills and glens over many a mile no matter the weather or the ground underfoot.
 
Sweetheart Travellers describes several cycling adventures in the Glenkens which the adult Crockett took with his firstborn daughter Maisie (Sweetheart) on a Humber Beeston Tricycle. And later in Sweethearts at Home he observes the passage of time noting that his daughter ‘is now ‘nineteen and tall. She would be the death of her poor father (and of the machine) at the very first hill. Now she rides a ‘free-wheel’ of her own’.
 
If his childhood was marked by the coming of railways, his adulthood was marked by the  advent of the car.  Crockett writes extensively about the perils of the new fangled motorised transport in Sweethearts at Home, reminiscing about ‘When the Roads Were Sweet, Safe and Silent.’  He observes:
‘Then we had the world to ourselves, save for a red farm cart or so. Then there were no motor-cars, no motor-buses, no clappering insolent monocycles! It was in some wise the rider's age of gold. The country still lay waste and sweet and silent about him. The ignoble ‘toot-toot’ and rhinoceros snort of the pursuing monster was unknown...
...Get out of the way, all you mean little people!’ was not yet the commonest of highway sounds. The green hedgerows were not hidden under a grey dust veil. The Trossachs, the Highlands, the English lakes, and our own fair Galloway roads were not splashed with the iridescent fragrance of petrol. Ah, we took Time by the forelock... in those old days when the hawthorn was untainted and the wayside honeysuckles still gave forth a good smell.’
 
It’s safe to say Crockett is not a fan of the car. He concludes:
‘I love my friends who are tied to these chariot wheels. But I fear for them. Temptation is great. Easy is the descent of Avernus, aided by a smart chauffeur, who wants to give you ‘the value of your money’ in speed and the survival of the fittest: id est, of himself and you!
Better, far better, to take pack on back, pilgrim staff in hand, and then—to the woods and the hills with Sweetheart and me, where never ‘teuf-teuf’ can be heard, nor petrol perfume the land.’

Despite (or perhaps because of) his aversion to this mode of transport, Crockett writes the first car chase in fiction. His 1907 novel Vida– The Iron Laird of Kirktown, features a chase from St John’s Town of Dalry to Newton Stewart across the Galloway moors. It precedes Buchan’s Thirty Nine Steps chase (over remarkably similar ground) by a decade. Buchan’s chase is better known simply because The Thirty Nine Steps is better known than Vida. But if you want a great Galloway car chase – turn to Crockett.  He evokes the wonder and danger of the motor car in the Galloway landscape thus:
‘I ran the Mercedes at his, as if to pass, and I could see his head already ducking low to avoid the bullet. Then I manoeuvered to take him behind at full speed, in which case I would have thrown him high in the air even if I had not exploded both cars. But the Mercedes ran little risk because of its great size and weight. So pleased was I with this play that the solitary house called Clatteringshaws came too soon in sight. He looked anxiously at the dyke, at the little garden, at the shark backs of purplish-grey rock. But no one came out at the noise of our racing wheels. With a yell I rushed him, and in a moment we were past and out on the moor again. ‘Yes, I played with him as a cat does with a mouse, now surging along as if to end him, and anon drawing slowly off. But a mile or two further there is a curious dip in the road down which we raced. A tall obelisk doubtless set there in memory of some great fighter of times long past-perhaps the Black George of Galloway-crowned a little heather mount to the right...

...‘I could see the yellow French car slacken speed as it took the hill opposite. On the contrary the weight of my Mercedes carried her to the top with unabated force. He needed fuel, too, and was beginning to know it. Before me I saw the wide country spread to a horizon of low whale-backed ridges with the rocks I have spoken of (called 'clints'), all about-a dreary place, but fit for my work-that which the little cold hands of Katarina on my wrists called me to do. There was also a long ditch showing black among the turfy heather, all gashed into deep cracks and proper for my purpose as if it had been made so...

...‘Then because it was time to end I caused the heavy Mercedes to sweep up abreast of the lighter French car, from the right side. It was a narrow way. Fair on the chassis a little before the rear wheel I struck, and our weight and force turned the yellow car over into a little ravine.’


In Crockett’s childhood it was the red farm cart that provided transport for his family as they travelled from Duchrae to the Cameronian Kirk in Castle Douglas on Sundays. He describes it in In A Galloway Herd:
‘The ‘Buik’ being over, the red cart rattled to the door to convey such of the church-goers as were not able to walk all the weary miles to the Cameronian kirk in Cairn Edward. The stalwart, long-legged sons had cut across a shorter way by the Big Hoose and the Deeside kirk… The clean red farm cart rattled into the town of Cairn Edward at five minutes past eleven… Times had not been good of late, and for some years, indeed, ever since the imposition of the tax on light-wheeled vehicles, the ‘tax-cart’ had slumbered wheelless in the back of the peat-shed, and the Drumquhat folk had driven a well-cleaned, heavy wheeled cart both to kirk and market.’
 
The young Walter, and we assume the young Sam Crockett, ‘nominally accompanied the cart, and occasionally he had seated himself on the clean straw which filled its bottom; but most of the time this was far too fatiguing an occupation for him. On the plea of walking up the hills, he ranged about on either side of the highway, scenting the ground like a young collie. He even gathered flowers when his ‘grandfather’ was not looking,’
 
Walking long distances was common in Crockett’s day. He observes: ‘As characters, I do not think that any in all Galloway impressed my boyish mind so much as the three Laurieston old maids, Mary, Jennie, and Jean M'Haffie. I have written of them time and again.
... They trudged fourteen miles every Sabbath day, with their dresses ‘feat and snod’ and their linen like the very snow, to listen to the gospel preached according to their consciences. They were all the smallest of women, but their hearts were great.’
 
If you are interested in the history (and history of transport) in the Glenkens there is much to be gleaned about turnpikes and farm carts in A Galloway Herd. Saunders M’Quhirr, brings Wattie’s mother back from London on the red cart in a chapter titled ‘The Serpent in Paradise’ where he describes the drive back to Laurieston in some detail.
‘One of the turnpikes led westward to the ferry over the Dee Water, through rocky glens and by gleaming hill tarns, while the other continued over the moors and by the loch-side to the village of Whinnyliggate. A stone's throw before the meeting of the roads was a little bridge over an insignificant but irresponsible brook—a burn which executed the most astonishing cuttings and curves.’
 
Descriptions of The Green Dook in The Banner of Blue, and road mending in Kit Kennedy offer more insights into the Glenkens of Crockett’s era.
 
The byways of the Glenkens may seem unremarkable if you whizz past in a car. Look through Crockett’s eyes however and you will see an entirely different place and pace – as he draws you into the Glenkens of a hundred and fifty years ago. While the roads have been upgraded extensively, if you get out in the countryside on foot or by bike, with Crockett as your guide you will have an entirely different experience.
 
Cally Phillips

​Dogs appear in many of Crockett’s Galloway novels and he writes about them with humour and deep understanding. He is clearly a dog-lover and appreciates the significant relationship between dog and man in the farming community. How a man treats a dog, and how he relates to a dog, is seen to be indicative of his character. That said, Crockett is not sentimental in his portrayal of dogs even though there is much humour to be had when a dog is in the scene. Like the human characters Crockett writes about, the dogs often have hard lives and come to sticky ends.
 
In The Black Douglas we encounter what might be a wolfhound, but is presented as a werewolf. Another ‘big’ dog that we come across is in The Raiders and is Silver Sand’s own wolfhound, known as Quharrie. This dog may well have been the template for Crockett’s contemporary Arthur Conan Doyle’s own Hound of the Baskervilles.
 
The young Patrick Heron describes his meeting with Silver Sand’s dog:
‘Silver Sand introduced me to Quharrie— that terrible dog—making him tender me a great paw in a manner absurdly solemn, which made me kin and blood-brother to him all the days of my life. And I have received many a gift which I have found less useful, as you shall hear.’


Most often the dogs found in Crockett’s stories are collies, ranging from pure sheep dogs to those of more dubious parentage. They are usually given familiar names and we encounter a number of incarnations of Tweed, Trusty, Tyke, Yarrow and Royal in various stories.
 
In Rose of the Wilderness, Tweed and Tusker show their skills as sheepdogs.  In The Loves of Miss Anne, Dan Weir’s sheepdogs Talla and Kilter stand guard during the storm when he abandons the flock and get struck by lightening for their pains.  It is a poignant description:
‘They were still and stiff—both of them stricken by the lightning. But first they had brought in the ewes and the lambs— when the shepherd himself had deserted them, brought them where they would be safe from the storm, from the torrents that seamed the mountains every way and from the terror that would have scattered them hither and thither over the waste.’
 
In The Moss Troopers the aptly named collie Whitefoot is skilled far beyond that of a sheepdog and is central to the subterfuge. He carries messages between Stair Garland and Patsy, and is faithful unto death.
 
In The Banner of Blue, Anton Macmillan’s dogs are described with humour for their wisdom, and the descriptions ring true for anyone who has owned a collie (or two).
‘When Anton appeared in the little yard where were his thatched byre and the tiny ‘office houses’ which his own hands had built out of the granite boulders of Bennangour there in the midst were his collies Tod and Tyke—with Messan the novice aforesaid, now grown wiser and vacuating the hearth of his own proper initiative without application of the force majeure…
...Is he going to the kirk or is he not going to the kirk? Tyke and Tod cocked their wise heads and thought. You can easily see a good collie think. No professor does it more obviously when asked a question in class.’

Crockett shows dogs to be a vital part of the working rural community and as valued companions to his boy heroes.   For example: ‘Kit Kennedy admired his mother above anything on earth—and loved her too, almost as much as his red dog Trusty.’
 
‘... as surely as the Wednesday and Saturday came round Kit would be found at play on the heights of the Craigs, rolling heathery wildernesses with the most fascinating nooks and corners, hiding-places and rocky watch-towers, that could possibly be imagined by the mind of boy. Here with Royal and Tweed, his satellite dogs. Kit kept his vigil, and was always the first to discern, far down the dusty road, the advent of Heather Jock and his donkey. ‘ Kit Kennedy has a whole chapter devoted to Kit and Royal playing truant which is an absolute tour de force of Crockett’s writing skills.

Crockett writes about real dogs from real experience, with a compelling humour. Dogs especially play a large part in the anarchy and chaos of the life of a boy. Crazy, the collie in The Dew of Their Youth is companion to Duncan and described as ‘our rough, red house-collie Crazy’  His shortcomings are ably described when Duncan and his grandmother go to visit ‘The Great House.’
‘After she had duly lectured the Widow Tolmie, she bade her in all amity ‘Good-day,’ and started to reform Crazy, who had been gyrating furiously across her path, trying apparently to bite his tail out by the roots. Crazy was, it appeared, a useless, good-for-nothing beast, a disgrace to a decent Elder’s house, and I was ordered to stone him home.’
The boy narrator sees it differently and continues:
‘ Crazy was my friend, my companion, my joy. Stone Crazy! It was not to be thought of. He would certainly consider it some new kind of game and run barking after the missiles.’

Crockett’s dogs are familiars in the kirk and the schoolroom as well as out on the hills. In The Stickit Minister, schoolmaster Duncan Duncanson is himself a victim of the figurative ‘black dog’ of depression. This manifests itself in violence at the arrival of Andrew Tait’s dog who: ‘in the height of the turmoil a great brown head presented itself at the door. It was the head of big red 'Trusty' the half-collie half-St.Bernard which sometimes accompanied Andrew Tait to the school, and played about outside till that youth got free of his bondage, when the pair went joyously homewards…
Trusty never was much of a scholar, in spite of so long frequenting the village academy.’

Another Royal features in ‘A Minister’s Day’. The young Wattie debates the question of whether dog’s have souls with the minister Richard Cameron, and makes a good account of himself.
‘Well,’ continued the minister, ‘would you not like to be a herd like Him, and look after men and not sheep?’
‘Sheep need to be lookit after as weel,’ said Walter.
‘But sheep have no souls to be saved!’ said Richard Cameron.
‘Dowgs hae!’ asserted Walter stoutly.
‘What makes you say so?’ said the minister indulgently. He was out for a holiday.
‘Because, if my dowg Royal hasna a soul, there's a heap o' fowk gangs to the kirk withoot!’
‘What does Royal do that makes you think that he has a soul?’ asked the minister.
‘Weel, for ae thing, he gangs to the kirk every Sabbath, and lies in the passage, an' he'll no as muckle as snack at a flee that lichts on his nose—a thing he's verra fond o' on a week day. An' if it's no' yersel' that's preachin', my gran'faither says that he'll rise an' gang oot till the sermon's by.’
The minister felt keenly the implied compliment.’

This story is re-told and expanded upon in A Galloway Herd where as well as Royal we are introduced to Yarrow and Donald the sheep. Donald also features in Kit Kennedy especially in the famous ‘roup’ scene.  Another Yarrow features in Love Idylls in the story ‘Fitting of the Peats’ where he is Bell McLurg’s trusted but half-blind collie.

Generally dogs are regarded as important by Crockett’s characters, but in Lads’ Love we see a darker side. Rab Anderson’s poaching dogs are called ‘You’ and ‘You there’ which evidences how little importance he gives them, despite the fact that without them he wouldn’t be in business. But there is worse to come. Rab Anderson is also known to steal dogs, holding them to ransom and drowning them if their owners do not cough up. As Wattie Anderson finds out in A Galloway Herd, kidnapping is not just reserved for people.

Dick, the terrier in Cinderella is less likeable than collies. He belongs to Hester’s cousin Tom and is a manifestation of the cruelty visited by the boy on his cousin. Tom sets Dick on Hester’s cat Fluffy. It is a shocking scene:
‘Catch her — this way — at her, Dick! You've got her! Hist —good dog! Sick her then!’
... Hester, with a wild fear suddenly taking possession of her soul, ran at full speed round the greenhouse, past the sun-dial, and there on the narrow ledge of a fence to which she had sprung from the window-sill of the potting-house stood Fluffy her own Fluffy, every hair on end with pain and anger, and her tail well-nigh as thick as her body. She was mewing piteously and flicking an ear that had been bitten through by the yapping fox-terrier which still leaped and snapped below. A drop or two of blood had distilled down and flecked Fluffy's delicate pearl-coloured fur.’
 
Despite this one act of cruelty, if you love dogs you will find many in Crockett’s stories to entertain you.  His descriptions are accurate, funny and sometimes painfully poignant.
 
Cally Phillips
January 2023