He hated it, but he hated himself more. Here was one, who had hugged
himself all his days as an adventurer waiting his chance, running away
at the first challenge of adventure; a lover of Romance who fled from
the earliest overture of his goddess. He was ashamed and angry, but
what else was there to do? Burglary in the company of a queer poet and
a queerer urchin? It was unthinkable.

Presently, as they tramped silently on, they came to the bridge
beneath which the peaty waters of the Garple ran in porter-coloured
pools and tawny cascades. From a clump of elders on the other side
Dougal emerged. A barefoot boy, dressed in much the same parody of
a Boy Scout's uniform, but with corduroy shorts instead of a kilt,
stood before him at rigid attention. Some command was issued, the
child saluted, and trotted back past the travellers with never a
look at them. Discipline was strong among the Gorbals Die-Hards;
no Chief of Staff ever conversed with his General under a
stricter etiquette.

Dougal received the travellers with the condescension of a regular
towards civilians.

"They're off their gawrd," he announced. Thomas Yownie has been
shadowin' them since skreigh o' day, and he reports that Dobson and
Lean followed ye till ye were out o' sight o' the houses, and syne
Lean got a spy-glass and watched ye till the road turned in among
the trees. That satisfied them, and they're both away back to their
jobs. Thomas Yownie's the fell yin. Ye'll no fickle Thomas Yownie."

Dougal extricated from his pouch the fag of a cigarette, lit it, and
puffed meditatively. "I did a reckonissince mysel' this morning.