‘Now, boys, I’m for my bed,’ said Amos, shaking the dottle from his pipe.  ’Mr Tombs, I’ll conduct ye the morn over the Brigend works, but I’ve had enough clavers for one evening.  I’m a man that wants his eight hours’ sleep.’

The old fellow saw them to the door, and came back to me with the ghost of a grin in his face.

’A queer crowd, Mr Brand!  Macnab didna like what ye said.  He had a laddie killed in Gallypoly, and he’s no lookin’ for peace this side the grave.  He’s my best friend in Glasgow.  He’s an elder in the Gaelic kirk in the Cowcaddens, and I’m what ye call a free-thinker, but we’re wonderful agreed on the fundamentals.  Ye spoke your bit verra well, I must admit.  Gresson will hear tell of ye as a promising recruit.’

‘It’s a rotten job,’ I said.

‘Ay, it’s a rotten job.  I often feel like vomiting over it mysel’.  But it’s no for us to complain.  There’s waur jobs oot in France for better men . . .  A word in your ear, Mr Brand.  Could ye not look a bit more sheepish?  Ye stare folk ower straight in the een, like a Hieland sergeant-major up at Maryhill Barracks.’  And he winked slowly and grotesquely with his left eye.

He marched to a cupboard and produced a black bottle and glass.  ’I’m blue-ribbon myself, but ye’ll be the better of something to tak the taste out of your mouth.  There’s Loch Katrine water at the pipe there . . .  As I was saying, there’s not much ill in that lot.  Tombs is a black offence, but a dominie’s a dominie all the world over.  They may crack about their Industrial Workers and the braw things they’re going to do, but there’s a wholesome dampness about the tinder on Clydeside.  They should try Ireland.’

Supposing,’ I said, ’there was a really clever man who wanted to help the enemy.  You think he could do little good by stirring up trouble in the shops here?’

‘I’m positive.’

‘And if he were a shrewd fellow, he’d soon tumble to that?’

‘Ay.’

’Then if he still stayed on here he would be after bigger game—­ something really dangerous and damnable?’

Amos drew down his brows and looked me in the face.  ’I see what ye’re ettlin’ at.  Ay!  That would be my conclusion.  I came to it weeks syne about the man ye’ll maybe meet the morn’s night.’

Then from below the bed he pulled a box from which he drew a handsome flute.  ’Ye’ll forgive me, Mr Brand, but I aye like a tune before I go to my bed.  Macnab says his prayers, and I have a tune on the flute, and the principle is just the same.’

So that singular evening closed with music—­very sweet and true renderings of old Border melodies like ‘My Peggy is a young thing’, and ‘When the kye come hame’.  I fell asleep with a vision of Amos, his face all puckered up at the mouth and a wandering sentiment in his eye, recapturing in his dingy world the emotions of a boy.

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