When they stopped at Galashiels a number of people got out, and he
returned to the compartment. It was now unoccupied except by an old
man and the girl he had helped, who gave him a grateful smile.

"I hadn't time to thank you, but I should have missed the train if you
had not been prompt," she said.

Foster did not know if Scottish etiquette warranted anything more than
a conventional reply, but he ventured to remark: "You certainly seemed
to have cut things rather fine."

"I had to drive some distance and the hill roads were bad; then when we
got to the town the streets were crowded."

"That would be sae," the old man agreed. "Hawick's gey thrang at the
wool sales when the yarn trade is guid."

Foster liked to talk to strangers and as the girl had not rebuffed him,
he took her cloak, which looked very wet, from the rack.

"Perhaps I'd better shake this in the corridor and then we can hang it
up," he said.

She allowed him to do so and the old man remarked:

"Guid gear's worth the saving, and I was thinking it would be nane the
waur o' a bit shake, but if ye had leeved to my age among the mosses,
ye'd no' find yereself sae soople."