se of
Wilson's retired and solitary speculation. "Ay," he said, emerging from
one of his business reveries, "there's bound to be heaps o' chances for
a man like me, if I only look about me."

He was "looking about him" in Glasgow when he forgathered with his
cousin William--the borer he! After many "How are ye, Jims's" and mutual
speirings over a "bit mouthful of yill"--so they phrased it; but that
was a meiosis, for they drank five quarts--they fell to a serious
discussion of the commercial possibilities of Scotland. The borer was of
the opinion that the Braes of Barbie had a future yet, "for a' the
gaffer was so keen on keeping his men in the dark about the coal."

Now Wilson knew (as what Scotsman does not?) that in the middle 'fifties
coal-boring in Scotland was not the honourable profession that it now
is. More than once, speculators procured lying reports that there were
no minerals, and after landowners had been ruined by their abortive
preliminary experiments, stepped in, bought the land, and boomed it. In
one notorious case a family, now great in the public eye, bribed a
laird's own borers to conceal the truth, and then buying the Golconda
from its impoverished owner, laid the basis of a vast fortune.

"D'ye mean--to tell--_me_, Weelyum Wilson," said James, giving him his
full name in the solemnity of the moment, "d'ye mean--to tell--_me_,
sir"--here he sank his voice to a whisper--"that there's joukery-pawkery
at work?"

"A declare to God A div," said Weelyum, with equal solemnity, and he
nodded with alarmed sapience across his beer jug.

"You believe there's plenty of coal up Barbie Valley, and that they're
keeping it dark in the meantime for some purpose of their own?"

"I do," said Weelyum.

"God!" said James, gripping the table with both hands in his
excitement--"God, if that's so, what a chance there's in Barbie! It has
been a dead town for twenty year, and twenty to the end o't. A verra
little would buy the hauf o't. But property 'ull rise in value like a
puddock stool at dark, serr, if the pits come round it! It will that. If
I was only sure o' your suspeecion, Weelyum, I'd invest every bawbee I
have in't. You're going home the night, are ye not?"

"I was just on my road to the station when I met ye," said Weelyum.

"Send me a scrape of your pen to-morrow, man, if what you see on getting
back keeps you still in the same mind o't. And directly I get your
letter I'll run down and look about me."