one many queer things in
his day, once telling me that the secret of playing a part was to think
yourself into it. You could never keep it up, he said, unless you
could manage to convince yourself that you were it. So I shut off all
other thoughts and switched them on to the road-mending. I thought of
the little white cottage as my home, I recalled the years I had spent
herding on Leithen Water, I made my mind dwell lovingly on sleep in a
box-bed and a bottle of cheap whisky. Still nothing appeared on that
long white road.

Now and then a sheep wandered off the heather to stare at me. A heron
flopped down to a pool in the stream and started to fish, taking no
more notice of me than if I had been a milestone. On I went, trundling
my loads of stone, with the heavy step of the professional. Soon I
grew warm, and the dust on my face changed into solid and abiding grit.
I was already counting the hours till evening should put a limit to Mr
Turnbull's monotonous toil. Suddenly a crisp voice spoke from the
road, and looking up I saw a little Ford two-seater, and a round-faced
young man in a bowler hat.

'Are you Alexander Turnbull?' he asked. 'I am the new County Road
Surveyor. You live at Blackhopefoot, and have charge of the section
from Laidlawbyres to the Riggs? Good! A fair bit of road, Turnbull,
and not badly engineered. A little soft about a mile off, and the
edges want cleaning. See you look after that. Good morning. You'll
know me the next time you see me.'

Clearly my get-up was good enough for the dreaded Surveyor. I went on
with my work, and as the morning grew towards noon I was cheered by a
little traffic. A baker's van breasted the hill, and sold me a bag of
ginger biscuits which I stowed in my trouser-pockets against
emergencies. Then a herd passed with sheep, and disturbed me somewhat
by asking loudly, 'What had become o' Specky?'

'In bed wi' the colic,' I replied, and the herd passed on ... just
about mid-day a big car stole down the hill, glided past and drew up a
hundred yards beyond. Its three occupants descended as if to stretch
their legs, and sauntered towards me.

Two of the men I had seen before from the window of the Galloway
inn--one lean, sharp, and dark, the other comfortable and smiling. The
third had the look of a countryman--a vet, perhaps, or a small farmer.
He was dressed in ill-cut knickerbockers, and the eye in his head was
as bright and wary as a hen's.

'Mor