e post-town. It ran on the edge of the moor and on the
lip of the Garple glen, till it crossed that stream and, keeping near
the coast, emerged after five miles into the cultivated flats of the
Lochan valley. The morning was fine, the keen air invited to high
spirits, plovers piped entrancingly over the bent and linnets sang in
the whins, there was a solid breakfast behind him, and the promise of a
cheerful road till luncheon. The stage was set for good humour, but
Dickson's heart, which should have been ascending with the larks, stuck
leadenly in his boots. He was not even relieved at putting Dalquharter
behind him. The atmosphere of that unhallowed place lay still on his
soul. He hated it, but he hated himself more. Here was one, who had
hugged himself all his days as an adventurer waiting his chance,
running away at the first challenge of adventure; a lover of Romance
who fled from the earliest overture of his goddess. He was ashamed and
angry, but what else was there to do? Burglary in the company of a
queer poet and a queerer urchin? It was unthinkable.

Presently, as they tramped silently on, they came to the bridge beneath
which the peaty waters of the Garple ran in porter-coloured pools and
tawny cascades. From a clump of elders on the other side Dougal
emerged. A barefoot boy, dressed in much the same parody of a Boy
Scout's uniform, but with corduroy shorts instead of a kilt, stood
before him at rigid attention. Some command was issued, the child
saluted, and trotted back past the travellers with never a look at
them. Discipline was strong among the Gorbals Die-Hards; no Chief of
Staff ever conversed with his General under a stricter etiquette.

Dougal received the travellers with the condescension of a regular
towards civilians.

"They're off their gawrd," he announced. "Thomas Yownie has been
shadowin' them since skreigh o' day, and he reports that Dobson and
Lean followed ye till ye were out o' sight o' the houses, and syne Lean
got a spy-glass and watched ye till the road turned in among the trees.
That satisfied them, and they're both away back to their jobs. Thomas
Yownie's the fell yin. Ye'll no fickle Thomas Yownie."

Dougal extricated from his pouch the fag of a cigarette, lit it, and
puffed meditatively. "I did a reckonissince mysel' this morning. I was
up at the Hoose afore it was light, and tried the door o' the
coal-hole. I doot they've gotten on our tracks, for it was
lockit--a