their backs to Michael's
train and their faces to the naked rails on the other side. Higher up
Michael could see the breast of an engine; it was backing, backing,
towards the troop-train that waited under the cover of the roof. He
could hear the clank of the coupling and the recoil. At that sound the
band had their mouths to their bagpipes and their fingers ready on the
stops. Two or three officers hurried down from the station doors and
stood ready.

The train came on slowly, packed with men; men who thrust their heads
and shoulders through the carriage windows, and knelt on the seats, and
stood straining over each other's backs to look out; men whose faces
were scarlet with excitement; men with open mouths shouting for joy.

The officers saluted as it passed. It halted at the open platform, and
suddenly the pipers began to play.

Michael got out of his train and watched.

Solemnly, in the grey evening of the rain, with their faces set in a
sort of stern esctasy, the Highlanders played to their comrades. Michael
did not know whether their tune was sad or gay. It poured itself into
one mournful, savage, sacred cry of salutation and valediction. When it
stopped the men shouted; there were voices that barked hoarsely and
broke; voices that roared; young voices that screamed, strung up by the
skirling of the bagpipes. The pipers played to them again.

And suddenly Michael was overcome. Pity shook him and grief and an
intolerable yearning, and shame. For one instant his soul rose up above
the music, and was made splendid and holy, the next he cowered under it,
stripped and beaten. He clenched his fists, hating this emotion that
stung him to tears and tore at his heart and at the hardness of
his mind.

As the troop-train moved slowly out of the station the pipers, piping
more and more shrilly, swung round and marched beside it to the end of
the platform. The band ceased abruptly, and the men answered with shout
after shout of violent joy; they reared up through the windows,
straining for the last look--and were gone.

Michael turned to the porter who lifted his luggage from the rack. "What
regiment are they?" he said.

"Camerons, sir. Going to the Front."

The clear, uncanny eyes of Veronica's father pursued him now.

* * * * *

At last he had got away from it.

In Rathdale, at any rate, there was peace. The hills and their pastures,
and the flat river fields were at peace. And i