As we emerged from the station into the golden evening I saw Mary Lamington again.  She was with one of the Weekes girls, and after the Biggleswick fashion was bareheaded, so that the sun glinted from her hair.  Ivery swept his hat off and made her a pretty speech, while I faced her steady eyes with the expressionlessness of the stage conspirator.

‘A charming child,’ he observed as we passed on.  ’Not without a touch of seriousness, too, which may yet be touched to noble issues.’

I considered, as I made my way to my final supper with the Jimsons, that the said child was likely to prove a sufficiently serious business for Mr Moxon Ivery before the game was out.

CHAPTER FOUR

Andrew Amos

I took the train three days later from King’s Cross to Edinburgh.  I went to the Pentland Hotel in Princes Street and left there a suit-case containing some clean linen and a change of clothes.  I had been thinking the thing out, and had come to the conclusion that I must have a base somewhere and a fresh outfit.  Then in well-worn tweeds and with no more luggage than a small trench kit-bag, I descended upon the city of Glasgow.

I walked from the station to the address which Blenkiron had given me.  It was a hot summer evening, and the streets were filled with bareheaded women and weary-looking artisans.  As I made my way down the Dumbarton Road I was amazed at the number of able-bodied fellows about, considering that you couldn’t stir a mile on any British front without bumping up against a Glasgow battalion.  Then I realized that there were such things as munitions and ships, and I wondered no more.

A stout and dishevelled lady at a close-mouth directed me to Mr Amos’s dwelling.  ‘Twa stairs up.  Andra will be in noo, havin’ his tea.  He’s no yin for overtime.  He’s generally hame on the chap of six.’  I ascended the stairs with a sinking heart, for like all South Africans I have a horror of dirt.  The place was pretty filthy, but at each landing there were two doors with well-polished handles and brass plates.  On one I read the name of Andrew Amos.

A man in his shirt-sleeves opened to me, a little man, without a collar, and with an unbuttoned waistcoat.  That was all I saw of him in the dim light, but he held out a paw like a gorilla’s and drew me in.

The sitting-room, which looked over many chimneys to a pale yellow sky against which two factory stalks stood out sharply, gave me light enough to observe him fully.  He was about five feet four, broad-shouldered, and with a great towsy head of grizzled hair.  He wore spectacles, and his face was like some old-fashioned Scots minister’s, for he had heavy eyebrows and whiskers which joined each other under his jaw, while his chin and enormous upper lip were clean-shaven.  His eyes were steely grey and very solemn, but full of smouldering energy.  His voice was enormous and would have shaken the walls if he had not had the habit of speaking with half-closed lips.  He had not a sound tooth in his head.