Chapter Eight. The Adventures of a Bagman

Mr. Standfast

by John Buchan

'Ye're punctual to time, Mr Brand,' said the voice of Amos. 'But
losh! man, what have ye done to your breeks! And your buits? Ye're no
just very respectable in your appearance.'

I wasn't. The confounded rocks of the Coolin had left their
mark on my shoes, which moreover had not been cleaned for a week, and
the same hills had rent my jacket at the shoulders, and torn my
trousers above the right knee, and stained every part of my apparel
with peat and lichen.

I cast myself on the bank beside Amos and lit my pipe. 'Did you
get my message?' I asked.

'Ay. It's gone on by a sure hand to the destination we ken of.
Ye've managed well, Mr Brand, but I wish ye were back in London.' He
sucked at his pipe, and the shaggy brows were pulled so low as to
hide the wary eyes. Then he proceeded to think aloud.

'Ye canna go back by Mallaig. I don't just understand why, but
they're lookin' for you down that line. It's a vexatious business
when your friends, meanin' the polis, are doing their best to upset
your plans and you no able to enlighten them. I could send word to
the Chief Constable and get ye through to London without a stop like
a load of fish from Aiberdeen, but that would be spoilin' the fine
character ye've been at such pains to construct. Na, na! Ye maun
take the risk and travel by Muirtown without ony creedentials.'

'It can't be a very big risk,' I interpolated.

'I'm no so sure. Gresson's left the Tobermory. He went by here
yesterday, on the Mallaig boat, and there was a wee blackavised man
with him that got out at the Kyle. He's there still, stoppin' at the
hotel. They ca' him Linklater and he travels in whisky. I don't
like the looks of him.'

'But Gresson does not suspect me?'

'Maybe no. But ye wouldna like him to see ye hereaways. Yon
gentry don't leave muckle to chance. Be very certain that every man
in Gresson's lot kens all about ye, and has your description down to
the mole on your chin.'

'Then they've got it wrong,' I replied. 'I was speakin'
feeguratively,' said Amos. 'I was considerin' your case the feck of
yesterday, and I've brought the best I could do for ye in the gig. I
wish ye were more respectable clad, but a good topcoat will hide
defeecencies.'

From behind the gig's seat he pulled out an ancient Gladstone
bag and revealed its contents. There was a bowler of a vulgar and
antiquated style; there was a ready-made overcoat of some dark cloth,
of the kind that a clerk wears on the road to the office; there was a
pair of detachable celluloid cuffs, and there was a linen collar and
dickie. Also there was a small handcase, such as bagmen carry on
their rounds.

'That's your luggage,' said Amos with pride. 'That wee bag's
full of samples. Ye'll mind I took the precaution of measurin' ye in
Glasgow, so the things'll fit. Ye've got a new name, Mr Brand, and
I've taken a room for ye in the hotel on the strength of it. Ye're
Archibald McCaskie, and ye're travellin' for the firm o' Todd, Sons
& Brothers, of Edinburgh. Ye ken the folk? They publish wee
releegious books, that ye've bin trying to sell for Sabbath-school
prizes to the Free Kirk ministers in Skye.'

The notion amused Amos, and he relapsed into the sombre chuckle
which with him did duty for a laugh.

I put my hat and waterproof in the bag and donned the bowler and
the top-coat. They fitted fairly well. Likewise the cuffs and
collar, though here I struck a snag, for I had lost my scarf
somewhere in the Coolin, and Amos, pelican-like, had to surrender the
rusty black tie which adorned his own person. It was a queer rig,
and I felt like nothing on earth in it, but Amos was satisfied.

'Mr McCaskie, sir,' he said, 'ye're the very model of a
publisher's traveller. Ye'd better learn a few biographical details,
which ye've maybe forgotten. Ye're an Edinburgh man, but ye were
some years in London, which explains the way ye speak. Ye bide at 6,
Russell Street, off the Meadows, and ye're an elder in the Nethergate
U.F. Kirk. Have ye ony special taste ye could lead the crack on to,
if ye're engaged in conversation?'

I suggested the English classics.

'And very suitable. Ye can try poalitics, too. Ye'd better be
a Free-trader but convertit by Lloyd George. That's a common case,
and ye'll need to be by-ordinar common ... If I was you, I would
daunder about here for a bit, and no arrive at your hotel till after
dark. Then ye can have your supper and gang to bed. The Muirtown
train leaves at half-seven in the morning ... Na, ye can't come with
me. It wouldna do for us to be seen thegither. If I meet ye in the
street I'll never let on I know ye.'

Amos climbed into the gig and jolted off home. I went down to
the shore and sat among the rocks, finishing about tea-time the
remains of my provisions. In the mellow gloaming I strolled into the
clachan and got a boat to put me over to the inn. It proved to be a
comfortable place, with a motherly old landlady who showed me to my
room and promised ham and eggs and cold salmon for supper. After a
good wash, which I needed, and an honest attempt to make my clothes
presentable, I descended to the meal in a coffee- room lit by a
single dim parafin lamp.

The food was excellent, and, as I ate, my spirits rose. In two
days I should be back in London beside Blenkiron and somewhere within
a day's journey of Mary. I could picture no scene now without
thinking how Mary fitted into it. For her sake I held Biggleswick
delectable, because I had seen her there. I wasn't sure if this was
love, but it was something I had never dreamed of before, something
which I now hugged the thought of. It made the whole earth rosy and
golden for me, and life so well worth living that I felt like a miser
towards the days to come.

I had about finished supper, when I was joined by another guest.
Seen in the light of that infamous lamp, he seemed a small, alert
fellow, with a bushy, black moustache, and black hair parted in the
middle. He had fed already and appeared to be hungering for human
society.

In three minutes he had told me that he had come down from
Portree and was on his way to Leith. A minute later he had whipped
out a card on which I read 'J. J. Linklater', and in the corner the
name of Hatherwick Bros. His accent betrayed that he hailed from the
west.

'I've been up among the distilleries,' he informed me. 'It's a
poor business distillin' in these times, wi' the teetotallers yowlin'
about the nation's shame and the way to lose the war. I'm a
temperate man mysel', but I would think shame to spile decent folks'
business. If the Government want to stop the drink, let them buy us
out. They've permitted us to invest good money in the trade, and they
must see that we get it back. The other way will wreck public
credit. That's what I say. Supposin' some Labour Government takes
the notion that soap's bad for the nation? Are they goin' to shut up
Port Sunlight? Or good clothes? Or lum hats? There's no end to their
daftness if they once start on that track. A lawfu' trade's a lawfu'
trade, says I, and it's contrary to public policy to pit it at the
mercy of wheen cranks. D'ye no agree, sir? By the way, I havena got
your name?'

I told him and he rambled on.

'We're blenders and do a very high-class business, mostly
foreign. The war's hit us wi' our export trade, of course, but we're
no as bad as some. What's your line, Mr McCaskie?'

When he heard he was keenly interested.

'D'ye say so? Ye're from Todd's! Man, I was in the book business
mysel', till I changed it for something a wee bit more lucrative. I
was on the road for three years for Andrew Matheson. Ye ken the name
- Paternoster Row - I've forgotten the number. I had a kind of
ambition to start a book-sellin' shop of my own and to make Linklater
o' Paisley a big name in the trade. But I got the offer from
Hatherwick's, and I was wantin' to get married, so filthy lucre won
the day. And I'm no sorry I changed. If it hadna been for this war,
I would have been makin' four figures with my salary and commissions
... My pipe's out. Have you one of those rare and valuable
curiosities called a spunk, Mr McCaskie?' He was a merry little grig
of a man, and he babbled on, till I announced my intention of going
to bed. If this was Amos's bagman, who had been seen in company with
Gresson, I understood how idle may be the suspicions of a clever man.
He had probably foregathered with Gresson on the Skye boat, and
wearied that saturnine soul with his cackle.

I was up betimes, paid my bill, ate a breakfast of porridge and
fresh haddock, and walked the few hundred yards to the station. It
was a warm, thick morning, with no sun visible, and the Skye hills
misty to their base. The three coaches on the little train were
nearly filled when I had bought my ticket, and I selected a
third-class smoking carriage which held four soldiers returning from
leave.

The train was already moving when a late passenger hurried along
the platform and clambered in beside me. A cheery 'Mornin', Mr
McCaskie,' revealed my fellow guest at the hotel.

We jolted away from the coast up a broad glen and then on to a
wide expanse of bog with big hills showing towards the north. It was
a drowsy day, and in that atmosphere of shag and crowded humanity I
felt my eyes closing. I had a short nap, and woke to find that Mr
Linklater had changed his seat and was now beside me.

'We'll no get a Scotsman till Muirtown,' he said. 'Have ye
nothing in your samples ye could give me to read?'

I had forgotten about the samples. I opened the case and found
the oddest collection of little books, all in gay bindings. Some
were religious, with names like Dew of Hermon and Cool Siloam; some
were innocent narratives, How Tommy saved his Pennies, A Missionary
Child in China, and Little Susie and her Uncle. There was a Life of
David Livingstone, a child's book on sea-shells, and a richly gilt
edition of the poems of one James Montgomery. I offered the
selection to Mr Linklater, who grinned and chose the Missionary
Child. 'It's not the reading I'm accustomed to,' he said. 'I like
strong meat - Hall Caine and Jack London. By the way, how d'ye
square this business of yours wi' the booksellers? When I was in
Matheson's there would have been trouble if we had dealt direct wi'
the public like you.'

The confounded fellow started to talk about the details of the
book trade, of which I knew nothing. He wanted to know on what terms
we sold 'juveniles', and what discount we gave the big wholesalers,
and what class of book we put out 'on sale'. I didn't understand a
word of his jargon, and I must have given myself away badly, for he
asked me questions about firms of which I had never heard, and I had
to make some kind of answer. I told myself that the donkey was
harmless, and that his opinion of me mattered nothing, but as soon as
I decently could I pretended to be absorbed in the Pilgrim's
Progress, a gaudy copy of which was among the samples. It opened at
the episode of Christian and Hopeful in the Enchanted Ground, and in
that stuffy carriage I presently followed the example of Heedless and
Too-Bold and fell sound asleep. I was awakened by the train rumbling
over the points of a little moorland junction. Sunk in a pleasing
lethargy, I sat with my eyes closed, and then covertly took a glance
at my companion. He had abandoned the Missionary Child and was
reading a little dun- coloured book, and marking passages with a
pencil. His face was absorbed, and it was a new face, not the
vacant, good-humoured look of the garrulous bagman, but something
shrewd, purposeful, and formidable. I remained hunched up as if
still sleeping, and tried to see what the book was. But my eyes,
good as they are, could make out nothing of the text or title, except
that I had a very strong impression that that book was not written in
the English tongue.

I woke abruptly, and leaned over to him. Quick as lightning he
slid his pencil up his sleeve and turned on me with a fatuous
smile.

'What d'ye make o' this, Mr McCaskie? It's a wee book I picked
up at a roup along with fifty others. I paid five shillings for the
lot. It looks like Gairman, but in my young days they didna teach us
foreign languages.'

I took the thing and turned over the pages, trying to keep any
sign of intelligence out of my face. It was German right enough, a
little manual of hydrography with no publisher's name on it. It had
the look of the kind of textbook a Government department might issue
to its officials.

I handed it back. 'It's either German or Dutch. I'm not much
of a scholar, barring a little French and the Latin I got at Heriot's
Hospital ... This is an awful slow train, Mr Linklater.'

The soldiers were playing nap, and the bagman proposed a game of
cards. I remembered in time that I was an elder in the Nethergate
U.F. Church and refused with some asperity. After that I shut my
eyes again, for I wanted to think out this new phenomenon.

The fellow knew German - that was clear. He had also been seen
in Gresson's company. I didn't believe he suspected me, though I
suspected him profoundly. It was my business to keep strictly to my
part and give him no cause to doubt me. He was clearly practising
his own part on me, and I must appear to take him literally on his
professions. So, presently, I woke up and engaged him in a
disputatious conversation about the morality of selling strong
liquors. He responded readily, and put the case for alcohol with
much point and vehemence. The discussion interested the soldiers,
and one of them, to show he was on Linklater's side, produced a flask
and offered him a drink. I concluded by observing morosely that the
bagman had been a better man when he peddled books for Alexander
Matheson, and that put the closure on the business.

That train was a record. It stopped at every station, and in
the afternoon it simply got tired and sat down in the middle of a
moor and reflected for an hour. I stuck my head out of the window
now and then, and smelt the rooty fragrance of bogs, and when we
halted on a bridge I watched the trout in the pools of the brown
river. Then I slept and smoked alternately, and began to get
furiously hungry.

Once I woke to hear the soldiers discussing the war. There was
an argument between a lance-corporal in the Camerons and a sapper
private about some trivial incident on the Somme.

'I tell ye I was there,' said the Cameron. 'We were relievin'
the Black Watch, and Fritz was shelling the road, and we didna get up
to the line till one o'clock in the mornin'. Frae Frickout Circus to
the south end o' the High Wood is every bit o' five mile.'

'Not abune three,' said the sapper dogmatically.

'Man, I've trampit it.'

'Same here. I took up wire every nicht for a week.'

The Cameron looked moodily round the company. 'I wish there was
anither man here that kent the place. He wad bear me out. These boys
are no good, for they didna join till later. I tell ye it's five
mile.'

'Three,' said the sapper.

Tempers were rising, for each of the disputants felt his
veracity assailed. It was too hot for a quarrel and I was so drowsy
that I was heedless.

'Shut up, you fools,' I said. 'The distance is six kilometres,
so you're both wrong.'

My tone was so familiar to the men that it stopped the wrangle,
but it was not the tone of a publisher's traveller. Mr Linklater
cocked his ears.

'What's a kilometre, Mr McCaskie?' he asked blandly.

'Multiply by five and divide by eight and you get the miles.'

I was on my guard now, and told a long story of a nephew who had
been killed on the Somme, and how I had corresponded with the War
Office about his case. 'Besides,' I said, 'I'm a great student o'
the newspapers, and I've read all the books about the war. It's a
difficult time this for us all, and if you can take a serious
interest in the campaign it helps a lot. I mean working out the
places on the map and reading Haig's dispatches.'

'Just so,' he said dryly, and I thought he watched me with an
odd look in his eyes.

A fresh idea possessed me. This man had been in Gresson's
company, he knew German, he was obviously something very different
from what he professed to be. What if he were in the employ of our
own Secret Service? I had appeared out of the void at the Kyle, and I
had made but a poor appearance as a bagman, showing no knowledge of
my own trade. I was in an area interdicted to the ordinary public;
and he had good reason to keep an eye on my movements. He was going
south, and so was I; clearly we must somehow part company.

'We change at Muirtown, don't we?' I asked. 'When does the
train for the south leave?' He consulted a pocket timetable.
'Ten-thirty-three. There's generally four hours to wait, for we're
due in at six-fifteen. But this auld hearse will be lucky if it's in
by nine.'

His forecast was correct. We rumbled out of the hills into
haughlands and caught a glimpse of the North Sea. Then we were hung
up while a long goods train passed down the line. It was almost dark
when at last we crawled into Muirtown station and disgorged our load
of hot and weary soldiery.

I bade an ostentatious farewell to Linklater. 'Very pleased to
have met you. I'll see you later on the Edinburgh train. I'm for a
walk to stretch my legs, and a bite o' supper.' I was very
determined that the ten-thirty for the south should leave without
me.

My notion was to get a bed and a meal in some secluded inn, and
walk out next morning and pick up a slow train down the line.
Linklater had disappeared towards the guard's van to find his
luggage, and the soldiers were sitting on their packs with that air
of being utterly and finally lost and neglected which characterizes
the British fighting-man on a journey. I gave up my ticket and,
since I had come off a northern train, walked unhindered into the
town.

It was market night, and the streets were crowded. Blue-jackets
from the Fleet, country-folk in to shop, and every kind of military
detail thronged the pavements. Fish-hawkers were crying their wares,
and there was a tatterdemalion piper making the night hideous at a
corner. I took a tortuous route and finally fixed on a
modest-looking public-house in a back street. When I inquired for a
room I could find no one in authority, but a slatternly girl informed
me that there was one vacant bed, and that I could have ham and eggs
in the bar. So, after hitting my head violently against a cross-
beam, I stumbled down some steps and entered a frowsty little place
smelling of spilt beer and stale tobacco.

The promised ham and eggs proved impossible - there were no eggs
to be had in Muirtown that night - but I was given cold mutton and a
pint of indifferent ale. There was nobody in the place but two
farmers drinking hot whisky and water and discussing with sombre
interest the rise in the price of feeding-stuffs. I ate my supper,
and was just preparing to find the whereabouts of my bedroom when
through the street door there entered a dozen soldiers.

In a second the quiet place became a babel. The men were
strictly sober; but they were in that temper of friendliness which
demands a libation of some kind. One was prepared to stand treat; he
was the leader of the lot, and it was to celebrate the end of his
leave that he was entertaining his pals. From where I sat I could
not see him, but his voice was dominant. 'What's your fancy, jock?
Beer for you, Andra? A pint and a dram for me. This is better than
vongblong and vongrooge, Davie. Man, when I'm sittin' in those
estamints, as they ca' them, I often long for a guid Scots
public.'

The voice was familiar. I shifted my seat to get a view of the
speaker, and then I hastily drew back. It was the Scots Fusilier I
had clipped on the jaw in defending Gresson after the Glasgow
meeting.

But by a strange fatality he had caught sight of me.

'Whae's that i' the corner?' he cried, leaving the bar to stare
at me. Now it is a queer thing, but if you have once fought with a
man, though only for a few seconds, you remember his face, and the
scrap in Glasgow had been under a lamp. The jock recognized me well
enough.

'By God!' he cried, 'if this is no a bit o' luck! Boys, here's
the man I feucht wi' in Glesca. Ye mind I telled ye about it. He
laid me oot, and it's my turn to do the same wi' him. I had a notion
I was gaun to mak' a nicht o't. There's naebody can hit Geordie
Hamilton without Geordie gettin' his ain back some day. Get up, man,
for I'm gaun to knock the heid off ye.'

I duly got up, and with the best composure I could muster looked
him in the face.

'You're mistaken, my friend. I never clapped eyes on you
before, and I never was in Glasgow in my life.'

'That's a damned lee,' said the Fusilier. 'Ye're the man, and
if ye're no, ye're like enough him to need a hidin'!'

'Confound your nonsense!' I said. 'I've no quarrel with you,
and I've better things to do than be scrapping with a stranger in a
public-house.'

'Have ye sae? Well, I'll learn ye better. I'm gaun to hit ye,
and then ye'll hae to fecht whether ye want it or no. Tam, haud my
jacket, and see that my drink's no skailed.'

This was an infernal nuisance, for a row here would bring in the
police, and my dubious position would be laid bare. I thought of
putting up a fight, for I was certain I could lay out the jock a
second time, but the worst of that was that I did not know where the
thing would end. I might have to fight the lot of them, and that
meant a noble public shindy. I did my best to speak my opponent
fair. I said we were all good friends and offered to stand drinks
for the party. But the Fusilier's blood was up and he was spoiling
for a row, ably abetted by his comrades. He had his tunic off now
and was stamping in front of me with doubled fists. I did the best
thing I could think of in the circumstances. My seat was close to
the steps which led to the other part of the inn. I grabbed my hat,
darted up them, and before they realized what I was doing had bolted
the door behind me. I could hear pandemonium break loose in the
bar.

I slipped down a dark passage to another which ran at right
angles to it, and which seemed to connect the street door of the inn
itself with the back premises. I could hear voices in the little
hall, and that stopped me short. One of them was Linklater's, but he
was not talking as Linklater had talked. He was speaking educated
English. I heard another with a Scots accent, which I took to be the
landlord's, and a third which sounded like some superior sort of
constable's, very prompt and official. I heard one phrase, too, from
Linklater - 'He calls himself McCaskie.' Then they stopped, for the
turmoil from the bar had reached the front door. The Fusilier and
his friends were looking for me by the other entrance.

The attention of the men in the hall was distracted, and that
gave me a chance. There was nothing for it but the back door. I
slipped through it into a courtyard and almost tumbled over a tub of
water. I planted the thing so that anyone coming that way would fall
over it. A door led me into an empty stable, and from that into a
lane. It was all absurdly easy, but as I started down the lane I
heard a mighty row and the sound of angry voices. Someone had gone
into the tub and I hoped it was Linklater. I had taken a liking to
the Fusilier jock.

There was the beginning of a moon somewhere, but that lane was
very dark. I ran to the left, for on the right it looked like a
cul-de-sac. This brought me into a quiet road of two-storied
cottages which showed at one end the lights of a street. So I took
the other way, for I wasn't going to have the whole population of
Muirtown on the hue-and-cry after me. I came into a country lane,
and I also came into the van of the pursuit, which must have taken a
short cut. They shouted when they saw me, but I had a small start,
and legged it down that road in the belief that I was making for open
country.

That was where I was wrong. The road took me round to the other
side of the town, and just when I was beginning to think I had a fair
chance I saw before me the lights of a signal-box and a little to the
left of it the lights of the station. In half an hour's time the
Edinburgh train would be leaving, but I had made that impossible.
Behind me I could hear the pursuers, giving tongue like hound
puppies, for they had attracted some pretty drunken gentlemen to
their party. I was badly puzzled where to turn, when I noticed
outside the station a long line of blurred lights, which could only
mean a train with the carriage blinds down. It had an engine
attached and seemed to be waiting for the addition of a couple of
trucks to start. It was a wild chance, but the only one I saw. I
scrambled across a piece of waste ground, climbed an embankment and
found myself on the metals. I ducked under the couplings and got on
the far side of the train, away from the enemy.

Then simultaneously two things happened. I heard the yells of
my pursuers a dozen yards off, and the train jolted into motion. I
jumped on the footboard, and looked into an open window. The
compartment was packed with troops, six a side and two men sitting on
the floor, and the door was locked. I dived headforemost through the
window and landed on the neck of a weary warrior who had just dropped
off to sleep.

While I was falling I made up my mind on my conduct. I must be
intoxicated, for I knew the infinite sympathy of the British soldier
towards those thus overtaken. They pulled me to my feet, and the man
I had descended on rubbed his skull and blasphemously demanded
explanations.

'Gen'lmen,' I hiccoughed, 'I 'pologize. I was late for this
bl-blighted train and I mus' be in E'inburgh 'morrow or I'll get the
sack. I 'pologize. If I've hurt my friend's head, I'll kiss it and
make it well.'

At this there was a great laugh. 'Ye'd better accept, Pete,'
said one. 'It's the first time anybody ever offered to kiss your
ugly heid.'

A man asked me who I was, and I appeared to be searching for a
card-case.

'Losht,' I groaned. 'Losht, and so's my wee bag and I've bashed
my po' hat. I'm an awful sight, gen'lmen - an awful warning to be in
time for trains. I'm John Johnstone, managing clerk to Messrs
Watters, Brown & Elph'stone, 923 Charl'tte Street, E'inburgh.
I've been up north seein' my mamma.'

'Ye should be in France,' said one man.

'Wish't I was, but they wouldn't let me. "Mr Johnstone," they
said, "ye're no dam good. Ye've varicose veins and a bad heart,"
they said. So I says, "Good mornin', gen'lmen. Don't blame me if
the country's ru'ned". That's what I said.'

I had by this time occupied the only remaining space left on the
floor. With the philosophy of their race the men had accepted my
presence, and were turning again to their own talk. The train had
got up speed, and as I judged it to be a special of some kind I
looked for few stoppings. Moreover it was not a corridor carriage,
but one of the old-fashioned kind, so I was safe for a time from the
unwelcome attention of conductors. I stretched my legs below the
seat, rested my head against the knees of a brawny gunner, and
settled down to make the best of it.

My reflections were not pleasant. I had got down too far below
the surface, and had the naked feeling you get in a dream when you
think you have gone to the theatre in your nightgown. I had had
three names in two days, and as many characters. I felt as if I had
no home or position anywhere, and was only a stray dog with
everybody's hand and foot against me. It was an ugly sensation, and
it was not redeemed by any acute fear or any knowledge of being mixed
up in some desperate drama. I knew I could easily go on to
Edinburgh, and when the police made trouble, as they would, a wire to
Scotland Yard would settle matters in a couple of hours. There wasn't
a suspicion of bodily danger to restore my dignity. The worst that
could happen would be that Ivery would hear of my being befriended by
the authorities, and the part I had settled to play would be
impossible. He would certainly hear. I had the greatest respect for
his intelligence service.

Yet that was bad enough. So far I had done well. I had put
Gresson off the scent. I had found out what Bullivant wanted to
know, and I had only to return unostentatiously to London to have won
out on the game. I told myself all that, but it didn't cheer my
spirits. I was feeling mean and hunted and very cold about the
feet.

But I have a tough knuckle of obstinacy in me which makes me
unwilling to give up a thing till I am fairly choked off it. The
chances were badly against me. The Scottish police were actively
interested in my movements and would be ready to welcome me at my
journey's end. I had ruined my hat, and my clothes, as Amos had
observed, were not respectable. I had got rid of a four-days' beard
the night before, but had cut myself in the process, and what with my
weather-beaten face and tangled hair looked liker a tinker than a
decent bagman. I thought with longing of my portmanteau in the
Pentland Hotel, Edinburgh, and the neat blue serge suit and the clean
linen that reposed in it. It was no case for a subtle game, for I
held no cards. Still I was determined not to chuck in my hand till I
was forced to. If the train stopped anywhere I would get out, and
trust to my own wits and the standing luck of the British Army for
the rest.

The chance came just after dawn, when we halted at a little
junction. I got up yawning and tried to open the door, till I
remembered it was locked. Thereupon I stuck my legs out of the
window on the side away from the platform, and was immediately seized
upon by a sleepy Seaforth who thought I contemplated suicide.

'Let me go,' I said. 'I'll be back in a jiffy.'

'Let him gang, jock,' said another voice. 'Ye ken what a man's
like when he's been on the bash. The cauld air'll sober him.'

I was released, and after some gymnastics dropped on the metals
and made my way round the rear of the train. As I clambered on the
platform it began to move, and a face looked out of one of the back
carriages. It was Linklater and he recognized me. He tried to get
out, but the door was promptly slammed by an indignant porter. I
heard him protest, and he kept his head out till the train went round
the curve. That cooked my goose all right. He would wire to the
police from the next station. Meantime in that clean, bare, chilly
place there was only one traveller. He was a slim young man, with a
kit-bag and a gun-case. His clothes were beautiful, a green Homburg
hat, a smart green tweed overcoat, and boots as brightly polished as
a horse chestnut. I caught his profile as he gave up his ticket and
to my amazement I recognized it.

The station-master looked askance at me as I presented myself,
dilapidated and dishevelled, to the official gaze. I tried to speak
in a tone of authority.

'Who is the man who has just gone out?'

'Whaur's your ticket?'

'I had no time to get one at Muirtown, and as you see I have
left my luggage behind me. Take it out of that pound and I'll come
back for the change. I want to know if that was Sir Archibald
Roylance.'

He looked suspiciously at the note. 'I think that's the name.
He's a captain up at the Fleein' School. What was ye wantin' with
him?'

I charged through the booking-office and found my man about to
enter a big grey motor-car.

'Archie,' I cried and beat him on the shoulders.

He turned round sharply. 'What the devil -! Who are you?' And
then recognition crept into his face and he gave a joyous shout. 'My
holy aunt! The General disguised as Charlie Chaplin! Can I drive you
anywhere, sir?'