"I have walked three hundred miles through pretty rough country and
dragged my belongings on a hand-sledge."
"Then I think I can tell ye how to see rugged Scotland, for the country
has two different sides. Ye can take your choice, but ye cannot see
both at once. I could send ye by main roads, where the tourists'
motors run, to the show-places, where ye would stay at smart hotels,
with Swiss and London waiters, and learn as much o' Scottish character
as ye would in Lucerne or the Strand."
"I don't think that is quite what I want. Besides, I haven't much time
and would sooner keep to the south."
"Then ye'll take the high ground and go by tracks the moss-troopers
rode, winding up the waters and among the fells, where there's only
cothouse clachans and lonely farm-towns. Ye'll see there why the old
Scottish stock grows firm and strong and the bit, bleak country breeds
men who make it respected across the world. Man, if I had not
rheumatism and some fashious business I cannot neglect, we would take
the moors together!"
"You don't seem to like the smart hotels," Foster remarked, half amused.
"I do not like the folk they harbor. The dusty trippers in leather
coats and goggles ye meet at Melrose and Jedburgh are an affront to an
old Scottish town. But a man on foot, in clothes that match the ling
and the gray bents, gives a human touch to the scene, whether ye meet
him by a wind-ruffled lochan or on the broad moor. Ye ken he has come
slowly through the quiet hills, for the love o' what he sees. But ye
will not understand an old man's havering!"
"I think I do," said Foster. "One learns the charm of the lone trail
in the Canadian bush. But I have a map, and don't care much where I
go, so long as it's somewhere south. Suppose you mark me out a route
towards Liddesdale."
The man did so, and jotted down a few marginal notes.
"I'm sending ye by the old drove roads," he explained. "Sometimes
ye'll find them plain enough, but often they're rough green tracks, and
nobody can tell ye when they were made. The moss-troopers wore them
deeper when they rode with the spear and steel-cap to Solway sands.
Afterwards came the drovers with their flocks and herds, the smugglers'
pack-horse trains, and messengers to Prince Charlie's friends from
Louis of France. That's why the old road runs across the fell, while
the turnpike keeps the valley. If ye follow my directions, ye'll maybe
find the link between industrial Scotland and the stormy past; it's in
the cothouse and clachan the race is bred that made and keeps alive
Glasgow and Dundee."
Foster thanked him and examined the map. It was clearly drawn and
showed the height and natural features of the country, which was
obviously rough. The path marked out led over the Border hills, dipped
into winding valleys, and skirted moorland lakes. It seemed to draw
him as he studied it, for the wilderness has charm, and the drove road
ran through heathy wastes far from the smoke of factories and mining
towns. Well, he was ready to cross the bleak uplands, without
troubling much about the mist and rain, for he had faced worse winters
than any Scotland knew, but he reflected with grim amusement that Daly
would find the traveling rough if he got on his trail.
There were, however, some things he needed for the journey, and he went
out to buy them while the shops were open. Next morning he gave
instructions that letters for himself and Lawrence should be sent to
Peebles, and when the clerk objected that he could not forward
Featherstone's without the latter's orders, said it did not matter. He
had left a clew for Daly, which was all he wanted, but, in order to
make it plainer, he sent the porter to the station with the bag and
told him to wait by the Peebles train. Then he set off, dressed in the
oldest clothes he had, wondering what adventures he would meet with in
the wilds.