ing heart. It was only poor
human nature, overtaken by thick darkness and misery, trying to open a
window towards the realm of sunshine.

And I came out into the roadway and turned towards the station. I did
not see them before, but I saw them now. A few yards separating them,
I pass two shops licensed to sell the means for opening windows towards
this realm of happiness; and two houses with gaudy lights called the
villagers to enter the region where all cares and worries are
forgotten. In the street pale-faced, ill-clad children played at being
soldiers, marching with heads erect. The gorge was already dark with
the evening shadows, but the lamps in the village were lit.

When the village was passed I stood and looked back. In the west the
setting sun had thrown over the heavens a glow. A well of liquid fire
glowed over Torfionn, and its rays spread fan-like, so that they
spanned the horizon, and, touching the rounded mass of Corstarfin, went
forth over the firth. Against this background stood silhouetted the
great arches that carry the railway across the hollow, and behind these
the arches that bear the canal. The piers stood as a gigantic forest.
These mighty arches might have been the work of the Romans. A soft,
luminous haze fell on the village. Window after window was lit up.
The door of a cottage near me was opened, and a flood of light streamed
out. A woman stood in the door, and looking up the road shouted "Jim,"
and a little boy, leaving his fellow-soldiers, rushed to her, and she
clasped him in her arms and closed the door.... In that moment the
little village seemed to me as if it were an outpost of Paradise.
Nature threw as a benediction the mantle of its loveliness over it.
What nature meant to be a sanctuary of beauty, man had changed into
Sodom.

***

The ticket-collector stood at his post and scanned the passengers as
they went through. He knew them all, and had only a stray ticket to
collect. I was last, and duly gave up my "return" from the "Cities of
the Plain." But he did not let me through the gate. "I want to show
you something," said the ticket-collector, and he led me into his
office and produced a pamphlet.

"I got it from the man who goes to Keswick," said the ticket-collector;
"you know him." I knew him, the best of men.

"Nae doubt," went on the ticket-collector; "nae doubt. He was always
giving me tracts. Tracts--faugh!--poor stuff, nae style, nae logic,
and nae