f Dalquharter, and the uncouth syllables
awoke some vague recollection in his mind. The great house in the trees
beyond--it must be a great house, for the map showed large
policies--was Huntingtower.

The last name fascinated and almost decided him. He pictured an
ancient keep by the sea, defended by converging rivers, which some old
Comyn lord of Galloway had built to command the shore road, and from
which he had sallied to hunt in his wild hills.... He liked the way the
moor dropped down to green meadows, and the mystery of the dark woods
beyond. He wanted to explore the twin waters, and see how they entered
that strange shimmering sea. The odd names, the odd cul-de-sac of a
peninsula, powerfully attracted him. Why should he not spend a night
there, for the map showed clearly that Dalquharter had an inn? He must
decide promptly, for before him a side-road left the highway, and the
signpost bore the legend, "Dalquharter and Huntingtower."

Mr. McCunn, being a cautious and pious man, took the omens. He tossed a
penny--heads go on, tails turn aside. It fell tails.

He knew as soon as he had taken three steps down the side-road that he
was doing something momentous, and the exhilaration of enterprise stole
into his soul. It occurred to him that this was the kind of landscape
that he had always especially hankered after, and had made pictures of
when he had a longing for the country on him--a wooded cape between
streams, with meadows inland and then a long lift of heather. He had
the same feeling of expectancy, of something most interesting and
curious on the eve of happening, that he had had long ago when he
waited on the curtain rising at his first play. His spirits soared
like the lark, and he took to singing. If only the inn at Dalquharter
were snug and empty, this was going to be a day in ten thousand. Thus
mirthfully he swung down the rough grass-grown road, past the railway,
till he came to a point where heath began to merge in pasture, and
dry-stone walls split the moor into fields. Suddenly his pace
slackened and song died on his lips. For, approaching from the right
by a tributary path was the Poet.

Mr. Heritage saw him afar off and waved a friendly hand. In spite of
his chagrin Dickson could not but confess that he had misjudged his
critic. Striding with long steps over the heather, his jacket open to
the wind, his face a-glow and his capless head like a whin-bush for
disorder, he cut a more who