or Pub"-"Gravender or Grub"--but
the monosyllables proved too vulgar for poetry. Regretfully he
desisted.

The rest of the road was as idyllic as the start. He would tramp
steadily for a mile or so and then saunter, leaning over bridges to
watch the trout in the pools, admiring from a dry-stone dyke the
unsteady gambols of new-born lambs, kicking up dust from strips of
moor-burn on the heather. Once by a fir-wood he was privileged to
surprise three lunatic hares waltzing. His cheeks glowed with the sun;
he moved in an atmosphere of pastoral, serene and contented. When the
shadows began to lengthen he arrived at the village of Cloncae, where
he proposed to lie. The inn looked dirty, but he found a decent widow,
above whose door ran the legend in home-made lettering, "Mrs. brockie
tea and Coffee," and who was willing to give him quarters. There he
supped handsomely off ham and eggs, and dipped into a work called
Covenanting Worthies, which garnished a table decorated with
sea-shells. At half-past nine precisely he retired to bed and
unhesitating sleep.

Next morning he awoke to a changed world. The sky was grey and so low
that his outlook was bounded by a cabbage garden, while a surly wind
prophesied rain. It was chilly, too, and he had his breakfast beside
the kitchen fire. Mrs. Brockie could not spare a capital letter for
her surname on the signboard, but she exalted it in her talk. He heard
of a multitude of Brockies, ascendant, descendant, and collateral, who
seemed to be in a fair way to inherit the earth. Dickson listened
sympathetically, and lingered by the fire. He felt stiff from
yesterday's exercise, and the edge was off his spirit.

The start was not quite what he had pictured. His pack seemed heavier,
his boots tighter, and his pipe drew badly. The first miles were all
uphill, with a wind tingling his ears, and no colours in the landscape
but brown and grey. Suddenly he awoke to the fact that he was dismal,
and thrust the notion behind him. He expanded his chest and drew in
long draughts of air. He told himself that this sharp weather was
better than sunshine. He remembered that all travellers in romances
battled with mist and rain. Presently his body recovered comfort and
vigour, and his mind worked itself into cheerfulness.

He overtook a party of tramps and fell into talk with them. He had
always had a fancy for the class, though he had never known anything
nearer it than city begga