Meantime I had to get back to London as inconspicuously as I had come.  It might take some doing, for the police who had been active in Morvern might be still on the track, and it was essential that I should keep out of trouble and give no hint to Gresson and his friends that I had been so far north.  However, that was for Amos to advise me on, and about noon I picked up my waterproof with its bursting pockets and set off on a long detour up the coast.  All that blessed day I scarcely met a soul.  I passed a distillery which seemed to have quit business, and in the evening came to a little town on the sea where I had a bed and supper in a superior kind of public-house.

Next day I struck southward along the coast, and had two experiences of interest.  I had a good look at Ranna, and observed that the Tobermory was no longer there.  Gresson had only waited to get his job finished; he could probably twist the old captain any way he wanted.  The second was that at the door of a village smithy I saw the back of the Portuguese Jew.  He was talking Gaelic this time—­good Gaelic it sounded, and in that knot of idlers he would have passed for the ordinariest kind of gillie.

He did not see me, and I had no desire to give him the chance, for I had an odd feeling that the day might come when it would be good for us to meet as strangers.

That night I put up boldly in the inn at Broadford, where they fed me nobly on fresh sea-trout and I first tasted an excellent liqueur made of honey and whisky.  Next morning I was early afoot, and well before midday was in sight of the narrows of the Kyle, and the two little stone clachans which face each other across the strip of sea.

About two miles from the place at a turn of the road I came upon a farmer’s gig, drawn up by the wayside, with the horse cropping the moorland grass.  A man sat on the bank smoking, with his left arm hooked in the reins.  He was an oldish man, with a short, square figure, and a woollen comforter enveloped his throat.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Adventures of a Bagman

‘Ye’re punctual to time, Mr Brand,’ said the voice of Amos.  ’But losh! man, what have ye done to your breeks!  And your buits?  Ye’re no just very respectable in your appearance.’

I wasn’t.  The confounded rocks of the Coolin had left their mark on my shoes, which moreover had not been cleaned for a week, and the same hills had rent my jacket at the shoulders, and torn my trousers above the right knee, and stained every part of my apparel with peat and lichen.

I cast myself on the bank beside Amos and lit my pipe.  ’Did you get my message?’ I asked.

’Ay.  It’s gone on by a sure hand to the destination we ken of.  Ye’ve managed well, Mr Brand, but I wish ye were back in London.’  He sucked at his pipe, and the shaggy brows were pulled so low as to hide the wary eyes.  Then he proceeded to think aloud.