I heard a voice cry out sharply, and a hand helped me to my feet.  It was Gresson, and he seemed excited.

’God, Mr Brand, that was a close call!  I was coming up to find you, when this damned ship took to lying on her side.  I guess I must have cannoned into you, and I was calling myself bad names when I saw you rolling into the Atlantic.  If I hadn’t got a grip on the rope I would have been down beside you.  Say, you’re not hurt?  I reckon you’d better come below and get a glass of rum under your belt.  You’re about as wet as mother’s dish-clouts.’

There’s one advantage about campaigning.  You take your luck when it comes and don’t worry about what might have been.  I didn’t think any more of the business, except that it had cured me of wanting to be sea-sick.  I went down to the reeking cabin without one qualm in my stomach, and ate a good meal of welsh-rabbit and bottled Bass, with a tot of rum to follow up with.  Then I shed my wet garments, and slept in my bunk till we anchored off a village in Mull in a clear blue morning.

It took us four days to crawl up that coast and make Oban, for we seemed to be a floating general store for every hamlet in those parts.  Gresson made himself very pleasant, as if he wanted to atone for nearly doing me in.  We played some poker, and I read the little books I had got in Colonsay, and then rigged up a fishing-line, and caught saithe and lythe and an occasional big haddock.  But I found the time pass slowly, and I was glad that about noon one day we came into a bay blocked with islands and saw a clean little town sitting on the hills and the smoke of a railway engine.

I went ashore and purchased a better brand of hat in a tweed store.  Then I made a bee-line for the post office, and asked for telegrams.  One was given to me, and as I opened it I saw Gresson at my elbow.

It read thus: 

   Brand, Post office, Oban.  Page 117, paragraph 3.  Ochterlony.

I passed it to Gresson with a rueful face.

‘There’s a piece of foolishness,’ I said.  ’I’ve got a cousin who’s a Presbyterian minister up in Ross-shire, and before I knew about this passport humbug I wrote to him and offered to pay him a visit.  I told him to wire me here if it was convenient, and the old idiot has sent me the wrong telegram.  This was likely as not meant for some other brother parson, who’s got my message instead.’

‘What’s the guy’s name?’ Gresson asked curiously, peering at the signature.

’Ochterlony.  David Ochterlony.  He’s a great swell at writing books, but he’s no earthly use at handling the telegraph.  However, it don’t signify, seeing I’m not going near him.’  I crumpled up the pink form and tossed it on the floor.  Gresson and I walked to the Tobermory together.

That afternoon, when I got a chance, I had out my Pilgrim’s Progress.  Page 117, paragraph 3, read: