left to play a lone hand.

He lunched nobly off three plates of Mrs. Morran's kail--an early lunch,
for that lady, having breakfasted at five, partook of the midday
meal about eleven. Then he explored her library, and settled
himself by the fire with a volume of Covenanting tales, entitled
GLEANINGS AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. It was a most practical work for one
in his position, for it told how various eminent saints of that era
escaped the attention of Claverhouse's dragoons. Dickson stored up
in his memory several of the incidents in case they should come
in handy. He wondered if any of his forbears had been Covenanters;
it comforted him to think that some old progenitor might have
hunkered behind turf walls and been chased for his life in the heather.
"Just like me," he reflected. "But the dragoons weren't foreigners,
and there was a kind of decency about Claverhouse too."

About four o'clock Dougal presented himself in the back kitchen.
He was an even wilder figure than usual, for his bare legs were mud
to the knees, his kilt and shirt clung sopping to his body, and,
having lost his hat, his wet hair was plastered over his eyes.
Mrs. Morran said, not unkindly, that he looked "like a wull-cat
glowerin' through a whin buss."

"How are you, Dougal?" Dickson asked genially. "Is the peace of
nature smoothing out the creases in your poor little soul?"

"What's that ye say?"

"Oh, just what I heard a man say in Glasgow. How have you got on?"