But with me he was very friendly and quiet. His ailment was
home-sickness; for though he had been a great voyager, it seemed he was
loath to quit our bleak countryside for ever. "I used aye to think o'
the first sight o' Inchkeith and the Lomond hills, and the smell o'
herrings at the pier o' Leith. What says the Word? '_Weep not for the
dead, neither bemoan him; but weep sore for him that goeth away, for he
shall return no more, nor see his native country_.'"

I asked him if I could do him any service.

"There's a woman at Cramond," he began timidly. "She might like to ken
what had become o' me. Would ye carry a message?"

I did better, for at Gib's dictation I composed for her a letter, since
he could not write. I wrote it on some blank pages from my pocket which
I used for College notes. It was surely the queerest love-letter ever
indited, for the most part of it was theology, and the rest was
instructions for the disposing of his scanty plenishing. I have
forgotten now what I wrote, but I remember that the woman's name was
Alison Steel.




CHAPTER IV.

OF A STAIRHEAD AND A SEA-CAPTAIN.

With the escapade that landed me in the Tolbooth there came an end to
the nightmare years of my first youth. A week later I got word that my