concern himself with the affairs of a forgotten village and a
tumble-down house!

Presently the train drew up at Kirkmichael station. The woman
descended, and Dobson, after making sure that no one else meant
to follow her example, also left the carriage. A porter was shouting:
"Fast train to Glasgow--Glasgow next stop." Dickson watched the
innkeeper shoulder his way through the crowd in the direction of the
booking office. "He's off to send a telegram," he decided.
"There'll be trouble waiting for me at the other end."

When the train moved on he found himself disinclined for further talk.
He had suddenly become meditative, and curled up in a corner with his
head hard against the window pane, watching the wet fields and
glistening roads as they slipped past. He had his plans made for his
conduct at Glasgow, but, Lord! how he loathed the whole business!
Last night he had had a kind of gusto in his desire to circumvent
villainy; at Dalquharter station he had enjoyed a momentary sense
of triumph; now he felt very small, lonely, and forlorn. Only one
thought far at the back of his mind cropped up now and then to give
him comfort. He was entering on the last lap. Once get this
detestable errand done and he would be a free man, free to go back
to the kindly humdrum life from which he should never have strayed.
Never again, he vowed, never again. Rather would he spend the rest
of his days in hydropathics than come within the pale of such
horrible adventures. Romance, forsooth! This was not the mild goddess
he had sought, but an awful harpy who battened on the souls of men.

He had some bad minutes as the train passed through the suburbs and
along the grimy embankment by which the southern lines enter the city.