m the careless world where he was nobody
at all to the familiar circle where he was a somebody, a mentioned man,
and the son of a mentioned man--young Mr. Gourlay!

He had a feeling of superiority to the others, too, because they were
mere local journeyers, while he had travelled all the way from mighty
Edinburgh by the late express. He was returning from the outer world,
while they were bits of bodies who had only been to Fechars. As
Edinburgh was to Fechars so was he to them. Round him was the halo of
distance and the mystery of night-travelling. He felt big.

"Have you a match, Robert?" he asked very graciously of Robin Gregg, one
of the porters whom he knew. Getting his match, he lit a cigarette; and
when it was lit, after one quick puff, turned it swiftly round to
examine its burning end. "Rotten!" he said, and threw it away to light
another. The porters were watching him, and he knew it. When the
stationmaster appeared yawning from his office, as he was passing
through the gate, and asked who it was, it flattered his vanity to hear
Robin's answer, that it was "young Mr. Gourlay of Barbie, just back from
the Univ-ai-rsity!"

He had been so hot for home that he had left Edinburgh at twilight, too
eager to wait for the morrow. There was no train for Barbie at this hour
of the night; and, of course, there was no gig to meet him. Even if he
had sent word of his coming, "There's no need for travelling so late,"
old Gourlay would have growled; "let him shank it. We're in no hurry to
have him home."

He set off briskly, eager to see his mother and tell her he had won the
Raeburn. The consciousness of his achievement danced in his blood, and
made the road light to his feet. His thoughts were not with the country
round him, but entirely in the moment of his entrance, when he should
proclaim his triumph, with proud enjoyment of his mother's pride. His
fancy swept to his journey's end, and took his body after, so that the
long way was as nothing, annihilate by the leap forward of his mind.

He was too vain, too full of himself and his petty triumph, to have room
for the beauty of the night. The sky was one sea of lit cloud, foamy
ridge upon ridge over all the heavens, and each wave was brimming with
its own whiteness, seeming unborrowed of the moon. Through one
peep-hole, and only one, shone a distant star, a faint white speck far
away, dimmed by the nearer splendours of the sky. Sometimes the thinning
edge of a cloud br