eft alone as I
had hoped. I got out at the next station, a little place whose name I
scarcely noted, set right in the heart of a bog. It reminded me of one
of those forgotten little stations in the Karroo. An old
station-master was digging in his garden, and with his spade over his
shoulder sauntered to the train, took charge of a parcel, and went back
to his potatoes. A child of ten received my ticket, and I emerged on a
white road that straggled over the brown moor.

It was a gorgeous spring evening, with every hill showing as clear as a
cut amethyst. The air had the queer, rooty smell of bogs, but it was
as fresh as mid-ocean, and it had the strangest effect on my spirits.
I actually felt light-hearted. I might have been a boy out for a
spring holiday tramp, instead of a man of thirty-seven very much wanted
by the police. I felt just as I used to feel when I was starting for a
big trek on a frosty morning on the high veld. If you believe me, I
swung along that road whistling. There was no plan of campaign in my
head, only just to go on and on in this blessed, honest-smelling hill
country, for every mile put me in better humour with myself.

In a roadside planting I cut a walking-stick of hazel, and presently
struck off the highway up a bypath which followed the glen of a
brawling stream. I reckoned that I was still far ahead of any pursuit,
and for that night might please myself. It was some hours since I had
tasted food, and I was getting very hungry when I came to a herd's
cottage set in a nook beside a waterfall. A brown-faced woman was
standing by the door, and greeted me with the kindly shyness of
moorland places. When I asked for a night's lodging she said I was
welcome to the 'bed in the loft', and very soon she set before me a
hearty meal of ham and eggs, scones, and thick sweet milk.

At the darkening her man came in from the hills, a lean giant, who in
one step covered as much ground as three paces of ordinary mortals.
They asked me no questions, for they had the perfect breeding of all
dwellers in the wilds, but I could see they set me down as a kind of
dealer, and I took some trouble to confirm their view. I spoke a lot
about cattle, of which my host knew little, and I picked up from him a
good deal about the local Galloway markets, which I tucked away in my
memory for future use. At ten I was nodding in my chair, and the 'bed
in the loft' received a weary man who never opened his eyes ti