lunch. I went and sat down beside him and we fell into desultory
conversation. He had a grand, wild face and I felt some curiosity
about him; but he was taciturn and all he told me was that he was
walking to the Gordon Arms, on his way to St. Mary's Loch. I asked
him every sort of question--as to where he had come from, where he
was going to and what he wanted to do--but he refused to gratify
my curiosity, so I gave him one of my cigarettes and a light and
we sat peacefully smoking together in silence. When the rain
cleared, I turned to him and said:

"You seem to walk all day and go nowhere; when you wake up in the
morning, how do you shape your course?"

To which he answered:

"I always turn my back to the wind."

Border people are more intelligent than those born in the South;
and the people of my birthplace are a hundred years in advance of
the Southern English even now.

When I was fourteen, I met a shepherd-boy reading a French book.
It was called "Le Secret de Delphine." I asked him how he came to
know French and he told me it was the extra subject he had been
allowed to choose for studying in his holidays; he walked eighteen
miles a day to school--nine there and nine back--taking his
chance of a lift from any passing vehicle. I begged him to read
out loud to me, but he was shy of his accent and would not do it.
The Lowland Scotch were a wonderful people in my day.