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One thing especially continues unfamiliar to the Scotsman's eye the domestic architecture, the look of streets and buildings; the quaint, venerable age of many, and the thin walls and warm colouring of all. We have, in Scotland, far fewer ancient buildings, above all in country places; and those that we have are all of hewn or harled masonry.
It may seem unfeeling to say it or think it; still it is as true as the plainest history of the last millenium. There is a patriotism that looks at the future through a gimlet hole, and sees in it but a single star. That patriotism is a natural, and most popular sentiment. It was strong in the Welshman's breast a thousand years ago, and in the Scotsman's half that distance back in the past.
What we really mean is that it is often difficult to see a Scotsman's jokes or even to know whether he is joking or being serious. As a matter of fact, the Scots are an unusually humorous race. They make jokes, however, with the long faces of undertakers, and one is sometimes afraid to laugh for fear of appearing frivolous on a solemn occasion.
And indeed, one of our old sayings is, For pleasure's sake I would liefer wet, Than ha' ten lumps of gold for each one of my sweat. And again, which is not a bad proverb, though unthrifty and unlike a Scotsman's, God makes the wheat grow greener, While farmer be at his dinner.
Then he dived below again to the engines so dear to his Scotsman's heart. The night was dark, but calm and windless, and the panting tug tore her way through a sea as smooth as glass towards where the ghastly glare of the last blue light had been seen. Twenty minutes later, Lester caught sight of the distressed ship. She was lying on her beam ends, and almost at the same moment came a loud hail
"I'll see it through," said Purdie. "Now, then these police. Look here is there a good hotel in this neighbourhood? I've all my traps in that taxi-cab downstairs I drove straight here from the station, because I wanted to see Andie Lauriston at once." "Money's no object to you, I reckon, mister?" asked Melky, with a shrewd glance at the young Scotsman's evident signs of prosperity.
The grave Scotsman's striking that chord even in a mind as innocent as Vida's, of accurate or ordered knowledge of the past, even here the chord could vibrate to a strange new sense of possible significance in this scene after all. It would be queer, it would be horrible, it was fortunately incredible, but what if, 'after all, she were ignorantly assisting at a scene that was to play its part in the greatest revolution the world had seen?
Salutary as some of the Scotsman's comments may have been, it was natural that the change in his manners should excite surprise among the dalespeople. The good people expressed themselves as "fairly maizelt" by the transformation. What did it all mean? There was surely something behind it.
He stood gibbering for a moment, while the crowd pressed on him with gibes and jeers; but he had his revenge, after all, for there was a tar-bucket at the foot of the upper-deck ladder, and with this he armed himself. The brush was well-charged and dripping, the tar yet liquid, the Scotsman's face was all-inviting.
"But hark ye, Jenkin," said Tunstall, "I think you are but half-bred English yourself. How came you to strike on the Scotsman's side after all?" "Why, you did so, too," answered Vincent. "Ay, because I saw you begin; and, besides, it is no Cumberland fashion to fall fifty upon one," replied Tunstall. "And no Christ Church fashion neither," said Jenkin. "Fair play and Old England for ever!
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