h--to attend the meeting the
Provost has convened about the railway. You'll come down to the meeting,
will ye noat?"

He wanted to get Gourlay away from the House with the Green Shutters. It
would be easier to quarrel with him out of doors.

But Gourlay gaped at him across the table, his eyes big with surprise
and disapproval.

"Huh!" he growled, "I wonder at a man like you giving your head to that!
It's a wheen damned nonsense."

"Oh, I'm no so sure of that," drawled the Templar. "I think the railway
means to come."

The whole country was agog about the new railway. The question agitating
solemn minds was whether it should join the main line at Fechars, thirty
miles ahead, or pass to the right, through Fleckie and Barbie, to a
junction up at Skeighan Drone. Many were the reasons spluttered in
vehement debate for one route or the other. "On the one side, ye see,
Skeighan was a big place a'readys, and look what a centre it would be if
it had three lines of rail running out and in! Eh, my, what a centre!
Then there was Fleckie and Barbie--they would be the big towns! Up the
valley, too, was the shortest road; it would be a daft-like thing to
build thirty mile of rail, when fifteen was enough to establish the
connection! And was it likely--I put it to ainy man of sense--was it
likely the Coal Company wouldn't do everything in their power to get the
railway up the valley, seeing that if it didn't come that airt they
would need to build a line of their own?"--"Ah, but then, ye see,
Fechars was a big place too, and there was lots of mineral up there as
well! And though it was a longer road to Fechars and part of it lay
across the moors, there were several wee towns that airt just waiting
for a chance of growth! I can tell ye, sirs, this was going to be a
close question!"

Such was the talk in pot-house and parlour, at kirk and mart and tryst
and fair, and wherever potentates did gather and abound. The partisans
on either side began to canvass the country in support of their
contentions. They might have kept their breath to cool their porridge,
for these matters, we know, are settled in the great Witenagemot. But
petitions were prepared and meetings were convened. In those days
Provost Connal of Barbie was in constant communion with the "Pow-ers."
"Yass," he nodded gravely--only "nod" is a word too swift for the grave
inclining of that mighty pow--"yass, ye know, the great thing in matters
like this is to get at the Po