Mr. Standfast
the feck of yesterday, and I’ve brought the best I could do for ye in
the gig. I wish ye were more respectable clad, but a good topcoat will
hide defeecencies.”
From behind the gig’s seat he pulled out an ancient Gladstone bag and
revealed its contents. There was a bowler of a vulgar and antiquated
style; there was a ready-made overcoat of some dark cloth, of the kind
that a clerk wears on the road to the office; there was a pair of
detachable celluloid cuffs, and there was a linen collar and dickie.
Also there was a small handcase, such as bagmen carry on their rounds.
“That’s your luggage,” said Amos with pride. “That wee bag’s full of
samples. Ye’ll mind I took the precaution of measurin’ ye in Glasgow,
so the things’ll fit. Ye’ve got a new name, Mr Brand, and I’ve taken a
room for ye in the hotel on the strength of it. Ye’re Archibald
McCaskie, and ye’re travellin’ for the firm o’ Todd, Sons & Brothers,
of Edinburgh. Ye ken the folk? They publish wee releegious books, that
ye’ve bin trying to sell for Sabbath-school prizes to the Free Kirk
ministers in Skye.”
The notion amused Amos, and he relapsed into the sombre chuckle which
with him did duty for a laugh.
I put my hat and waterproof in the bag and donned the bowler and the
top-coat. They fitted fairly well. Likewise the cuffs and collar,
though here I struck a snag, for I had lost my scarf somewhere in the
Coolin, and Amos, pelican-like, had to surrender the rusty black tie
which adorned his own person. It was a queer rig, and I felt like
nothing on earth in it, but Amos was satisfied.
“Mr McCaskie, sir,” he said, “ye’re the very model of a publisher’s
traveller. Ye’d better learn a few biographical details, which ye’ve
maybe forgotten. Ye’re an Edinburgh man, but ye were some years in
London, which explains the way ye speak. Ye bide at 6, Russell Street,
off the Meadows, and ye’re an elder in the Nethergate U.F. Kirk. Have
ye ony special taste ye could lead the crack on to, if ye’re engaged in
conversation?”
I suggested the English classics.
“And very suitable. Ye can try poalitics, too. Ye’d better be a
Free-trader but convertit by Lloyd George. That’s a common case, and
ye’ll need to be by-ordinar common.... If I was you, I would daunder
about here for a bit, and no arrive at your hotel till after dark. Then
ye can have your supper and gang to bed. The Muirtown train leaves at
half-seven in the morning.... Na, ye can’t come with me. It wouldna do
for us to be seen thegither. If I meet ye in the street I’ll never let
on I know ye.”
Amos climbed into the gig and jolted off home. I went down to the shore
and sat among the rocks, finishing about tea-time the remains of my
provisions. In the mellow gloaming I strolled into the clachan and got
a boat to put me over to the inn. It proved to be a comfortable place,
with a motherly old landlady who showed me to my room and promised ham
and eggs and cold salmon for supper. After a good wash, which I needed,
and an honest attempt to make my clothes presentable, I descended to
the meal in a coffee-room lit by a single dim paraffin lamp.
The food was excellent, and, as I ate, my spirits rose. In two days I
should be back in London beside Blenkiron and somewhere within a day’s
journey of Mary. I could picture no scene now without thinking how Mary
fitted into it. For her sake I held Biggleswick delectable, because I
had seen her there. I wasn’t sure if this was love, but it was
something I had never dreamed of before, something which I now hugged
the thought of. It made the whole earth rosy and golden for me, and
life so well worth living that I felt like a miser towards the days to
come.
I had about finished supper, when I was joined by another guest. Seen
in the light of that infamous lamp, he seemed a small, alert fellow,
with a bushy, black moustache, and black hair parted in the middle. He
had fed already and appeared to be hungering for human society.
In three minutes he had told me that he had come down from Portree and
was on his way to Leith. A minute later he had whipped out a card on
which I read “J. J. Linklater”, and in the corner the name of
Hatherwick Bros. His accent betrayed that he hailed from the west.
“I’ve been up among the distilleries,” he informed me. “It’s a poor
business distillin’ in these times, wi’ the teetotallers yowlin’ about
the nation’s shame and the way to lose the war. I’m a temperate man
mysel’, but I would think shame to spile decent folks’ business. If the
Government want to stop the drink, let them buy us out. They’ve
permitted us to invest good money in the trade, and they must see that
we get it back. The other way will wreck public credit. That’s what I
say. Supposin’ some Labour Government takes the notion that soap’s bad
for the nation? Are they goin’ to shut up Port Sunlight? Or good
clothes? Or lum hats? There’s no end to their daftness if they once
start on that track. A lawfu’ trade’s a lawfu’ trade, says I, and it’s
contrary to public policy to pit it at the mercy of wheen cranks. D’ye
no agree, sir? By the way, I havena got your name?”
I told him and he rambled on.
“We’re blenders and do a very high-class business, mostly foreign. The
war’s hit us wi’ our export trade, of course, but we’re no as bad as
some. What’s your line, Mr McCaskie?”
When he heard he was keenly interested.
“D’ye say so? Ye’re from Todd’s! Man, I was in the book business
mysel’, till I changed it for something a wee bit more lucrative. I was
on the road for three years for Andrew Matheson. Ye ken the
name—Paternoster Row—I’ve forgotten the number. I had a kind of
ambition to start a book-sellin’ shop of my own and to make Linklater
o’ Paisley a big name in the trade. But I got the offer from
Hatherwick’s, and I was wantin’ to get married, so filthy lucre won the
day. And I’m no sorry I changed. If it hadna been for this war, I would
have been makin’ four figures with my salary and commissions.... My
pipe’s out. Have you one of those rare and valuable curiosities called
a spunk, Mr McCaskie?”
He was a merry little grig of a man, and he babbled on, till I
announced my intention of going to bed. If this was Amos’s bagman, who
had been seen in company with Gresson, I understood how idle may be the
suspicions of a clever man. He had probably foregathered with Gresson
on the Skye boat, and wearied that saturnine soul with his cackle.
I was up betimes, paid my bill, ate a breakfast of porridge and fresh
haddock, and walked the few hundred yards to the station. It was a
warm, thick morning, with no sun visible, and the Skye hills misty to
their base. The three coaches on the little train were nearly filled
when I had bought my ticket, and I selected a third-class smoking
carriage which held four soldiers returning from leave.
The train was already moving when a late passenger hurried along the
platform and clambered in beside me. A cheery “Mornin’, Mr McCaskie,”
revealed my fellow guest at the hotel.
We jolted away from the coast up a broad glen and then on to a wide
expanse of bog with big hills showing towards the north. It was a
drowsy day, and in that atmosphere of shag and crowded humanity I felt
my eyes closing. I had a short nap, and woke to find that Mr Linklater
had changed his seat and was now beside me.
“We’ll no get a _Scotsman_ till Muirtown,” he said. “Have ye nothing in
your samples ye could give me to read?”
I had forgotten about the samples. I opened the case and found the
oddest collection of little books, all in gay bindings. Some were
religious, with names like _Dew of Hermon_ and _Cool Siloam_; some were
innocent narratives, _How Tommy saved his Pennies_, _A Missionary Child
in China_, and _Little Susie and her Uncle_. There was a _Life of David
Livingstone_, a child’s book on sea-shells, and a richly gilt edition
of the poems of one James Montgomery. I offered the selection to Mr
Linklater, who grinned and chose the Missionary Child. “It’s not the
reading I’m accustomed to,” he said. “I like strong meat—Hall Caine and
Jack London. By the way, how d’ye square this business of yours wi’ the
booksellers? When I was in Matheson’s there would have been trouble if
we had dealt direct wi’ the public like you.”
The confounded fellow started to talk about the details of the book
trade, of which I knew nothing. He wanted to know on what terms we sold
“juveniles”, and what discount we gave the big wholesalers, and what
class of book we put out “on sale”. I didn’t understand a word of his
jargon, and I must have given myself away badly, for he asked me
questions about firms of which I had never heard, and I had to make
some kind of answer. I told myself that the donkey was harmless, and
that his opinion of me mattered nothing, but as soon as I decently
could I pretended to be absorbed in the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, a gaudy
copy of which was among the samples. It opened at the episode of
Christian and Hopeful in the Enchanted Ground, and in that stuffy
carriage I presently followed the example of Heedless and Too-Bold and
fell sound asleep. I was awakened by the train rumbling over the points
of a little moorland junction. Sunk in a pleasing lethargy, I sat with
my eyes closed, and then covertly took a glance at my companion. He had
abandoned the Missionary Child and was reading a little dun-coloured
book, and marking passages with a pencil. His face was absorbed, and it
was a new face, not the vacant, good-humoured look of the garrulous
bagman, but something shrewd, purposeful, and formidable. I remained
hunched up as if still sleeping, and tried to see what the book was.
But my eyes, good as they are, could make out nothing of the text or
title, except that I had a very strong impression that that book was
not written in the English tongue.
I woke abruptly, and leaned over to him. Quick as lightning he slid his
pencil up his sleeve and turned on me with a fatuous smile.
“What d’ye make o’ this, Mr McCaskie? It’s a wee book I picked up at a
roup along with fifty others. I paid five shillings for the lot. It
looks like Gairman, but in my young days they didna teach us foreign
languages.”
I took the thing and turned over the pages, trying to keep any sign of
intelligence out of my face. It was German right enough, a little
manual of hydrography with no publisher’s name on it. It had the look
of the kind of textbook a Government department might issue to its
officials.
I handed it back. “It’s either German or Dutch. I’m not much of a
scholar, barring a little French and the Latin I got at Heriot’s
Hospital.... This is an awful slow train, Mr Linklater.”
The soldiers were playing nap, and the bagman proposed a game of cards.
I remembered in time that I was an elder in the Nethergate U.F. Church
and refused with some asperity. After that I shut my eyes again, for I
wanted to think out this new phenomenon.
The fellow knew German—that was clear. He had also been seen in
Gresson’s company. I didn’t believe he suspected me, though I suspected
him profoundly. It was my business to keep strictly to my part and give
him no cause to doubt me. He was clearly practising his own part on me,
and I must appear to take him literally on his professions. So,
presently, I woke up and engaged him in a disputatious conversation
about the morality of selling strong liquors. He responded readily, and
put the case for alcohol with much point and vehemence. The discussion
interested the soldiers, and one of them, to show he was on Linklater’s
side, produced a flask and offered him a drink. I concluded by
observing morosely that the bagman had been a better man when he
peddled books for Alexander Matheson, and that put the closure on the
business.
That train was a record. It stopped at every station, and in the