Chapter VI. How Mr. McCunn Departed With Relief and Returned With Resolution

Huntingtower

by John Buchan

At seven o'clock on the following morning the post-cart,
summoned by an early message from Mrs. Morran, appeared outside the
cottage. In it sat the ancient postman, whose real home was
Auchenlochan, but who slept alternate nights in Dalquharter, and
beside him Dobson the innkeeper. Dickson and his hostess stood at
the garden-gate, the former with his pack on his back, and at his
feet a small stout wooden box, of the kind in which cheeses are
transported, garnished with an immense padlock. Heritage for
obvious reasons did not appear; at the moment he was crouched on the
floor of the loft watching the departure through a gap in the dimity
curtains.

The traveller, after making sure that Dobson was looking,
furtively slipped the key of the trunk into his knapsack.

"Well, good-bye, Auntie Phemie," he said. "I'm sure you've
been awful kind to me, and I don't know how to thank you for all
you're sending."

"Tuts, Dickson, my man, they're hungry folk about Glesca
that'll be glad o' my scones and jeelie. Tell Mirren I'm rale
pleased wi' her man, and haste ye back soon."

The trunk was deposited on the floor of the cart, and Dickson
clambered into the back seat. He was thankful that he had not to sit
next to Dobson, for he had tell-tale stuff on his person. The
morning was wet, so he wore his waterproof, which concealed his odd
tendency to stoutness about the middle.

Mrs. Morran played her part well, with all the becoming
gravity of an affectionate aunt, but as soon as the post-cart turned
the bend of the road her demeanour changed. She was torn with
convulsions of silent laughter. She retreated to the kitchen, sank
into a chair, wrapped her face in her apron and rocked. Heritage,
descending, found her struggling to regain composure. "D'ye ken his
wife's name?" she gasped. "I ca'ed her Mirren! And maybe the
body's no' mairried! Hech sirs! Hech sirs!"

Meanwhile Dickson was bumping along the moor-road on the back
of the post-cart. He had worked out a plan, just as he had been
used aforetime to devise a deal in foodstuffs. He had expected one
of the watchers to turn up, and was rather relieved that it should
be Dobson, whom he regarded as "the most natural beast" of the
three. Somehow he did not think that he would be molested before he
reached the station, since his enemies would still be undecided in
their minds. Probably they only wanted to make sure that he had
really departed to forget all about him. But if not, he had his
plan ready.

"Are you travelling to-day?" he asked the innkeeper.

"Just as far as the station to see about some oil-cake I'm
expectin'. What's in your wee kist? Ye came here wi' nothing but
the bag on your back."

"Ay, the kist is no' mine. It's my auntie's. She's a kind
body, and nothing would serve but she must pack a box for me to take
back. Let me see. There's a baking of scones; three pots of honey
and one of rhubarb jam--she was aye famous for her rhubarb jam; a
mutton ham, which you can't get for love or money in Glasgow; some
home-made black puddings, and a wee skim-milk cheese. I doubt I'll
have to take a cab from the station."

Dobson appeared satisfied, lit a short pipe, and relapsed
into meditation. The long uphill road, ever climbing to where far
off showed the tiny whitewashed buildings which were the railway
station, seemed interminable this morning. The aged postman
addressed strange objurgations to his aged horse and muttered
reflections to himself, the innkeeper smoked, and Dickson stared back
into the misty hollow where lay Dalquharter. The south-west wind
had brought up a screen of rain clouds and washed all the
countryside in a soft wet grey. But the eye could still travel a
fair distance, and Dickson thought he had a glimpse of a figure on a
bicycle leaving the village two miles back. He wondered who it
could be. Not Heritage, who had no bicycle. Perhaps some woman who
was conspicuously late for the train. Women were the chief cyclists
nowadays in country places.

Then he forgot about the bicycle and twisted his neck to watch
the station. It was less than a mile off now, and they had no time
to spare, for away to the south among the hummocks of the bog he saw
the smoke of the train coming from Auchenlochan. The postman also
saw it and whipped up his beast into a clumsy canter. Dickson,
always nervous being late for trains, forced his eyes away and
regarded again the road behind him. Suddenly the cyclist had become
quite plain--a little more than a mile behind--a man, and pedalling
furiously in spite of the stiff ascent. It could only be one
person--Leon. He must have discovered their visit to the House
yesterday and be on the way to warn Dobson. If he reached the
station before the train, there would be no journey to Glasgow that
day for one respectable citizen.

Dickson was in a fever of impatience and fright. He dared not
abjure the postman to hurry, lest Dobson should turn his head and
descry his colleague. But that ancient man had begun to realize the
shortness of time and was urging the cart along at a fair pace,
since they were now on the flatter shelf of land which carried the
railway.

Dickson kept his eyes fixed on the bicycle and his teeth shut
tight on his lower lip. Now it was hidden by the last dip of hill;
now it emerged into view not a quarter of a mile behind, and its
rider gave vent to a shrill call. Luckily the innkeeper did not
hear, for at that moment with a jolt the cart pulled up at the
station door, accompanied by the roar of the incoming train.

Dickson whipped down from the back seat and seized the
solitary porter. "Label the box for Glasgow and into the van with
it, Quick, man, and there'll be a shilling for you." He had been
doing some rapid thinking these last minutes and had made up his
mind. If Dobson and he were alone in a carriage he could not have
the box there; that must be elsewhere, so that Dobson could not
examine it if he were set on violence, somewhere in which it could
still be a focus of suspicion and attract attention from his person,
He took his ticket, and rushed on to the platform, to find the
porter and the box at the door of the guard's van. Dobson was not
there. With the vigour of a fussy traveller he shouted directions
to the guard to take good care of his luggage, hurled a shilling at
the porter, and ran for a carriage. At that moment he became aware
of Dobson hurrying through the entrance. He must have met Leon and
heard news from him, for his face was red and his ugly brows
darkening.

The train was in motion. "Here, you" Dobson's voice shouted.
"Stop! I want a word wi' ye." Dickson plunged at a third-class
carriage, for he saw faces behind the misty panes, and above all
things then he feared an empty compartment. He clambered on to the
step, but the handle would not turn, and with a sharp pang of fear
he felt the innkeeper's grip on his arm. Then some Samaritan from
within let down the window, opened the door, and pulled him up. He
fell on a seat, and a second later Dobson staggered in beside him.

Thank Heaven, the dirty little carriage was nearly full.
There were two herds, each with a dog and a long hazel crook, and an
elderly woman who looked like a ploughman's wife out for a day's
marketing. And there was one other whom Dickson recognized with
peculiar joy-- the bagman in the provision line of business whom he
had met three days before at Kilchrist.

The recognition was mutual. "Mr. McCunn!" the bagman
exclaimed. "My, but that was running it fine! I hope you've had a
pleasant holiday, sir?"

"Very pleasant. I've been spending two nights with friends
down hereaways. I've been very fortunate in the weather, for it has
broke just when I'm leaving."

Dickson sank back on the hard cushions. It had been a near
thing, but so far he had won. He wished his heart did not beat so
fast, and he hoped he did not betray his disorder in his face. Very
deliberately he hunted for his pipe and filled it slowly. Then he
turned to Dobson, "I didn't know you were travelling the day. What
about your oil-cake?"

"I've changed my mind," was the gruff answer.

"Was that you I heard crying on me when we were running for
the train?"

"Ay. I thought ye had forgot about your kist."

"No fear," said Dickson. "I'm no' likely to forget my
auntie's scones."

He laughed pleasantly and then turned to the bagman.
Thereafter the compartment hummed with the technicalities of the
grocery trade. He exerted himself to draw out his companion, to have
him refer to the great firm of D. McCunn, so that the innkeeper
might be ashamed of his suspicions. What nonsense to imagine that a
noted and wealthy Glasgow merchant--the bagman's tone was almost
reverential--would concern himself with the affairs of a forgotten
village and a tumble-down house!

Presently the train drew up at Kirkmichael station. The woman
descended, and Dobson, after making sure that no one else meant to
follow her example, also left the carriage. A porter was shouting:
"Fast train to Glasgow--Glasgow next stop." Dickson watched the
innkeeper shoulder his way through the crowd in the direction of the
booking office. "He's off to send a telegram," he decided.
"There'll be trouble waiting for me at the other end."

When the train moved on he found himself disinclined for
further talk. He had suddenly become meditative, and curled up in a
corner with his head hard against the window pane, watching the wet
fields and glistening roads as they slipped past. He had his plans
made for his conduct at Glasgow, but, Lord! how he loathed the whole
business! Last night he had had a kind of gusto in his desire to
circumvent villainy; at Dalquharter station he had enjoyed a
momentary sense of triumph; now he felt very small, lonely, and
forlorn. Only one thought far at the back of his mind cropped up
now and then to give him comfort. He was entering on the last lap.
Once get this detestable errand done and he would be a free man,
free to go back to the kindly humdrum life from which he should
never have strayed. Never again, he vowed, never again. Rather
would he spend the rest of his days in hydropathics than come within
the pale of such horrible adventures. Romance, forsooth! This was
not the mild goddess he had sought, but an awful harpy who battened
on the souls of men.

He had some bad minutes as the train passed through the
suburbs and along the grimy embankment by which the southern lines
enter the city. But as it rumbled over the river bridge and slowed
down before the terminus his vitality suddenly revived. He was a
business man, and there was now something for him to do.

After a rapid farewell to the bagman, he found a porter and
hustled his box out of the van in the direction of the left-luggage
office. Spies, summoned by Dobson's telegram, were, he was
convinced, watching his every movement, and he meant to see that
they missed nothing. He received his ticket for the box, and slowly
and ostentatiously stowed it away in his pack. Swinging the said
pack on his arm, he sauntered through the entrance hall to the row
of waiting taxi-cabs, and selected the oldest and most doddering
driver. He deposited the pack inside on the seat, and then stood
still as if struck with a sudden thought.

"I breakfasted terrible early," he told the driver. "I think
I'll have a bite to eat. Will you wait?"

"Ay," said the man, who was reading a grubby sheet of
newspaper. "I'll wait as long as ye like, for it's you that
pays."

Dickson left his pack in the cab and, oddly enough for a
careful man, he did not shut the door. He re-entered the station,
strolled to the bookstall, and bought a Glasgow Herald. His steps
then tended to the refreshment-room, where he ordered a cup of
coffee and two Bath buns, and seated himself at a small table.
There he was soon immersed in the financial news, and though he
sipped his coffee he left the buns untasted. He took out a penknife
and cut various extracts from the Herald, bestowing them carefully
in his pocket. An observer would have seen an elderly gentleman
absorbed in market quotations.

After a quarter of an hour had been spent in this performance
he happened to glance at the clock and rose with an exclamation. He
bustled out to his taxi and found the driver still intent upon his
reading. "Here I am at last," he said cheerily, and had a foot on
the step, when he stopped suddenly with a cry. It was a cry of
alarm, but also of satisfaction.

"What's become of my pack? I left it on the seat, and now
it's gone! There's been a thief here."

The driver, roused from his lethargy, protested in the name of
his gods that no one had been near it. "Ye took it into the station
wi' ye," he urged.

"I did nothing of the kind. Just you wait here till I see
the inspector. A bonny watch you keep on a gentleman's things."

But Dickson did not interview the railway authorities.
Instead he hurried to the left-luggage office. "I deposited a small
box here a short time ago. I mind the number. Is it here
still?"

The attendant glanced at the shelf. "A wee deal box with iron
bands. It was took out ten minutes syne. A man brought the ticket
and took it away on his shoulder."

"Thank you. There's been a mistake, but the blame's mine. My
man mistook my orders."

Then he returned to the now nervous taxi-driver. "I've taken
it up with the station-master and he's putting the police on.
You'll likely be wanted, so I gave him your number. It's a fair
disgrace that there should be so many thieves about this station.
It's not the first time I've lost things. Drive me to West George
Street and look sharp." And he slammed the door with the violence
of an angry man.

But his reflections were not violent, for he smiled to
himself. "That was pretty neat. They'll take some time to get the
kist open, for I dropped the key out of the train after we left
Kirkmichael. That gives me a fair start. If I hadn't thought of
that, they'd have found some way to grip me and ripe me long before
I got to the Bank." He shuddered as he thought of the dangers he had
escaped. "As it is, they're off the track for half an hour at
least, while they're rummaging among Auntie Phemie's scones." At
the thought he laughed heartily, and when he brought the taxi-cab to
a standstill by rapping on the front window, he left it with a
temper apparently restored. Obviously he had no grudge against the
driver, who to his immense surprise was rewarded with ten
shillings.

Three minutes later Mr. McCunn might have been seen entering
the head office of the Strathclyde Bank and inquiring for the
manager. There was no hesitation about him now, for his foot was on
his native heath. The chief cashier received him with deference in
spite of his unorthodox garb, for he was not the least honoured of
the bank's customers. As it chanced he had been talking about him
that very morning to a gentleman from London. "The strength of this
city," he had said, tapping his eyeglasses on his knuckles, "does not
lie in its dozen very rich men, but in the hundred or two homely
folk who make no parade of wealth. Men like Dickson McCunn, for
example, who live all their life in a semi-detached villa and die
worth half a million." And the Londoner had cordially assented.

So Dickson was ushered promptly into an inner room, and was
warmly greeted by Mr. Mackintosh, the patron of the Gorbals
Die-Hards.

"I must thank you for your generous donation, McCunn. Those
boys will get a little fresh air and quiet after the smoke and din
of Glasgow. A little country peace to smooth out the creases in
their poor little souls."

"Maybe," said Dickson, with a vivid recollection of Dougal as
he had last seen him. Somehow he did not think that peace was
likely to be the portion of that devoted band. "But I've not come
here to speak about that."

He took off his waterproof; then his coat and waistcoat; and
showed himself a strange figure with sundry bulges about the middle.
The manager's eyes grew very round. Presently these excrescences
were revealed as linen bags sewn on to his shirt, and fitting into
the hollow between ribs and hip. With some difficulty he slit the
bags and extracted three hide-bound packages.

"See here, Mackintosh," he said solemnly. "I hand you over
these parcels, and you're to put them in the innermost corner of
your strong room. You needn't open them. Just put them away as
they are, and write me a receipt for them. Write it now."

Mr. Mackintosh obediently took pen in hand.

"What'll I call them?" he asked.

"Just the three leather parcels handed to you by Dickson
McCunn, Esq., naming the date."

Mr. Mackintosh wrote. He signed his name with his usual
flourish and handed the slip to his client.

"Now," said Dickson, "you'll put that receipt in the strong
box where you keep my securities and you'll give it up to nobody but
me in person and you'll surrender the parcels only on presentation
of the receipt. D'you understand?"

"Perfectly. May I ask any questions?"

"You'd better not if you don't want to hear lees.'

"What's in the packages?" Mr. Mackintosh weighed them in his
hand.

"That's asking," said Dickson. "But I'll tell ye this much.
It's jools."

"Your own?"

"No, but I'm their trustee."

"Valuable?"

"I was hearing they were worth more than a million pounds."

"God bless my soul," said the startled manager. "I don't like
this kind of business, McCunn."

"No more do I. But you'll do it to oblige an old friend and a
good customer. If you don't know much about the packages you know
all about me. Now, mind, I trust you."

Mr. Mackintosh forced himself to a joke. "Did you maybe steal
them?"

Dickson grinned. "Just what I did. And that being so, I want
you to let me out by the back door."

When he found himself in the street he felt the huge relief of
a boy who had emerged with credit from the dentist's chair.
Remembering that here would be no midday dinner for him at home, his
first step was to feed heavily at a restaurant. He had, so far as
he could see, surmounted all his troubles, his one regret being that
he had lost his pack, which contained among other things his Izaak
Walton and his safety razor. He bought another razor and a new
Walton, and mounted an electric tram car en route for home.

Very contented with himself he felt as the car swung across
the Clyde bridge. He had done well--but of that he did not want to
think, for the whole beastly thing was over. He was going to bury
that memory, to be resurrected perhaps on a later day when the
unpleasantness had been forgotten. Heritage had his address, and
knew where to come when it was time to claim the jewels. As for the
watchers, they must have ceased to suspect him, when they discovered
the innocent contents of his knapsack and Mrs. Morran's box. Home
for him, and a luxurious tea by his own fireside; and then an
evening with his books, for Heritage's nonsense had stimulated his
literary fervour. He would dip into his old favourites again to
confirm his faith. To-morrow he would go for a jaunt
somewhere--perhaps down the Clyde, or to the South of England, which
he had heard was a pleasant, thickly peopled country. No more lonely
inns and deserted villages for him; henceforth he would make certain
of comfort and peace.

The rain had stopped, and, as the car moved down the dreary
vista of Eglinton street, the sky opened into fields of blue and the
April sun silvered the puddles. It was in such place and under such
weather that Dickson suffered an overwhelming experience.

It is beyond my skill, being all unlearned in the game of
psycho-analysis, to explain how this thing happened. I concern
myself only with facts. Suddenly the pretty veil of
self-satisfaction was rent from top to bottom, and Dickson saw a
figure of himself within, a smug leaden little figure which simpered
and preened itself and was hollow as a rotten nut. And he hated
it.

The horrid truth burst on him that Heritage had been right.
He only played with life. That imbecile image was a mere spectator,
content to applaud, but shrinking from the contact of reality. It
had been all right as a provision merchant, but when it fancied
itself capable of higher things it had deceived itself. Foolish
little image with its brave dreams and its swelling words from
Browning! All make-believe of the feeblest. He was a coward,
running away at the first threat of danger. It was as if he were
watching a tall stranger with a wand pointing to the embarrassed
phantom that was himself, and ruthlessly exposing its frailties! And
yet the pitiless showman was himself too--himself as he wanted to be,
cheerful, brave, resourceful, indomitable.

Dickson suffered a spasm of mortal agony. "Oh, I'm surely not
so bad as all that," he groaned. But the hurt was not only in his
pride. He saw himself being forced to new decisions, and each
alternative was of the blackest. He fairly shivered with the horror
of it. The car slipped past a suburban station from which passengers
were emerging--comfortable black-coated men such as he had once
been. He was bitterly angry with Providence for picking him out of
the great crowd of sedentary folk for this sore ordeal. "Why was I
tethered to sich a conscience?" was his moan. But there was that
stern inquisitor with his pointer exploring his soul. "You flatter
yourself you have done your share," he was saying. "You will make
pretty stories about it to yourself, and some day you may tell your
friends, modestly disclaiming any special credit. But you will be a
liar, for you know you are afraid. You are running away when the
work is scarcely begun, and leaving it to a few boys and a poet whom
you had the impudence the other day to despise. I think you are
worse than a coward. I think you are a cad."

His fellow-passengers on the top of the car saw an absorbed
middle-aged gentleman who seemed to have something the matter with
his bronchial tubes. They could not guess at the tortured soul. The
decision was coming nearer, the alternatives loomed up dark and
inevitable. On one side was submission to ignominy, on the other a
return to that place which he detested, and yet loathed himself for
detesting. "It seems I'm not likely to have much peace either way,"
he reflected dismally.

How the conflict would have ended had it continued on these
lines I cannot say. The soul of Mr. McCunn was being assailed by
moral and metaphysical adversaries with which he had not been
trained to deal. But suddenly it leapt from negatives to positives.
He saw the face of the girl in the shuttered House, so fair and
young and yet so haggard. It seemed to be appealing to him to rescue
it from a great loneliness and fear. Yes, he had been right, it had
a strange look of his Janet-- the wide-open eyes, the solemn mouth.
What was to become of that child if he failed her in her need?

Now Dickson was a practical man, and this view of the case
brought him into a world which he understood. "It's fair
ridiculous," he reflected. "Nobody there to take a grip of things.
Just a wheen Gorbals keelies and the lad Heritage. Not a business
man among the lot."

The alternatives, which hove before him like two great banks
of cloud, were altering their appearance. One was becoming faint
and tenuous; the other, solid as ever, was just a shade less black.
He lifted his eyes and saw in the near distance the corner of the
road which led to his home. "I must decide before I reach that
corner," he told himself.

Then his mind became apathetic. He began to whistle dismally
through his teeth, watching the corner as it came nearer. The car
stopped with a jerk. "I'll go back," he said aloud, clambering down
the steps. The truth was he had decided five minutes before when he
first saw Janet's face.

He walked briskly to his house, entirely refusing to waste any
more energy on reflection. "This is a business proposition," he
told himself, "and I'm going to handle it as sich." Tibby was
surprised to see him and offered him tea in vain. "I'm just back
for a few minutes. Let's see the letters."

There was one from his wife. She proposed to stay another
week at the Neuk Hydropathic and suggested that he might join her
and bring her home. He sat down and wrote a long affectionate
reply, declining, but expressing his delight that she was soon
returning. "That's very likely the last time Mamma will hear from
me," he reflected, but--oddly enough--without any great fluttering
of the heart.

Then he proceeded to be furiously busy. He sent out Tibby to
buy another knapsack and to order a cab and to cash a considerable
cheque. In the knapsack he packed a fresh change of clothing and the
new safety razor, but no books, for he was past the need of them.
That done, he drove to his solicitors.

"What like a firm are Glendonan and Speirs in Edinburgh?" he
asked the senior partner.

"Oh, very respectable. Very respectable indeed. Regular
Edinburgh W.S. Lot. Do a lot of factoring."

"I want you to telephone through to them and inquire about a
place in Carrick called Huntingtower, near the village of
Dalquharter. I understand it's to let, and I'm thinking of taking a
lease of it."

The senior partner after some delay got through to Edinburgh,
and was presently engaged in the feverish dialectic which the
long-distance telephone involves. "I want to speak to Mr. Glendonan
himself.... Yes, yes, Mr. Caw of Paton and Linklater....Good
afternoon.... Huntingtower. Yes, in Carrick. Not to let? But I
understand it's been in the market for some months. You say you've
an idea it has just been let. But my client is positive that you're
mistaken, unless the agreement was made this morning.... You'll
inquire? Ah, I see. The actual factoring is done by your local
agent, Mr. James Loudon, in Auchenlochan. You think my client had
better get into touch with him at once. Just wait a minute,
please."

He put his hand over the receiver. "Usual Edinburgh way of
doing business," he observed caustically. "What do you want
done?"

"I'll run down and see this Loudon. Tell Glendonan and Spiers
to advise him to expect me, for I'll go this very day."

Mr. Caw resumed his conversation. "My client would like a
telegram sent at once to Mr. Loudon introducing him. He's Mr.
Dickson McCunn of Mearns Street--the great provision merchant, you
know. Oh, yes! Good for any rent. Refer if you like to the
Strathclyde Bank, but you can take my word for it. Thank you. Then
that's settled. Good-bye."

Dickson's next visit was to a gunmaker who was a fellow-elder
with him in the Guthrie Memorial Kirk.

"I want a pistol and a lot of cartridges," he announced. "I'm
not caring what kind it is, so long as it is a good one and not too
big."

"For yourself?" the gunmaker asked. "You must have a license,
I doubt, and there's a lot of new regulations."

"I can't wait on a license. It's for a cousin of mine who's
off to Mexico at once. You've got to find some way of obliging an
old friend, Mr. McNair."

Mr. McNair scratched his head. "I don't see how I can sell
you one. But I'll tell you what I'll do--I'll lend you one. It
belongs to my nephew, Peter Tait, and has been lying in a drawer
ever since he came back from the front. He has no use for it now
that he's a placed minister."

So Dickson bestowed in the pockets of his water-proof a
service revolver and fifty cartridges, and bade his cab take him to
the shop in Mearns Street. For a moment the sight of the familiar
place struck a pang to his breast, but he choked down unavailing
regrets. He ordered a great hamper of foodstuffs--the most delicate
kind of tinned goods, two perfect hams, tongues, Strassburg pies,
chocolate, cakes, biscuits, and, as a last thought, half a dozen
bottles of old liqueur brandy. It was to be carefully packed,
addressed to Mrs. Morran, Dalquharter Station, and delivered in time
for him to take down by the 7.33 train. Then he drove to the
terminus and dined with something like a desperate peace in his
heart.

On this occasion he took a first-class ticket, for he wanted
to be alone. As the lights began to be lit in the wayside stations
and the clear April dusk darkened into night, his thoughts were
sombre yet resigned. He opened the window and let the sharp air of
the Renfrewshire uplands fill the carriage. It was fine weather
again after the rain, and a bright constellation--perhaps Dougal's
friend O'Brien--hung in the western sky. How happy he would have
been a week ago had he been starting thus for a country holiday! He
could sniff the faint scent of moor-burn and ploughed earth which
had always been his first reminder of Spring. But he had been
pitchforked out of that old happy world and could never enter it
again. Alas! for the roadside fire, the cosy inn, the Compleat
Angler, the Chavender or Chub!

And yet--and yet! He had done the right thing, though the
Lord alone knew how it would end. He began to pluck courage from
his very melancholy, and hope from his reflections upon the
transitoriness of life. He was austerely following Romance as he
conceived it, and if that capricious lady had taken one dream from
him she might yet reward him with a better. Tags of poetry came
into his head which seemed to favour this philosophy--particularly
some lines of Browning on which he used to discourse to his Kirk
Literary Society. Uncommon silly, he considered, these homilies of
his must have been, mere twitterings of the unfledged. But now he
saw more in the lines, a deeper interpretation which he had earned
the right to make.

"Oh world, where all things change and nought abides, Oh
life, the long mutation--is it so? Is it with life as with the
body's change?-- Where, e'en tho' better follow, good must pass."

That was as far as he could get, though he cudgelled his
memory to continue. Moralizing thus, he became drowsy, and was
almost asleep when the train drew up at the station of
Kirkmichael.