But just at that moment up came the main line express twenty minutes behind time, and the engine-driver in a bad temper. And if Muckle Alick had not opposed the breadth of his beam to the buffer of Geordie Grierson's engine, this tale, so far at least as two of the Kavannahs were concerned, would have ended here. But when Muckle Alick gripped the children in his great arms, and made that spring to the side, the engine caught him so exactly in the right place that it did no more than considerably accelerate his lateral motion, and project him half-way up the bank. As has been recorded, Muckle Alick's first exclamation (which immediately became proverbial all over the Greenock and South-Eastern) was, "Is there aught broke, Geordie, think ye?" They talked of getting up a testimonial to Muckle Alick. But the hero himself strongly discouraged the notion. Indeed, he went so far as to declare that he "wad gie the fule a ring on the lug that cam' to him wi' ony sic a thing!" This was a somewhat unusual attitude for a hero to assume in the circumstances. But it was quite genuine. And so well known was the horse-power of Alick's buffet, that it would have been easier to recruit a storming party in Netherby than a deputation to present a "token of esteem" to the head porter at Netherby Junction. In time, however (though this is somewhat to anticipate the tale), there came from the Royal Humane Society a medal, together with a long paper setting forth the noble deed of the saving of the children. No notice of this ever appeared publicly in the local prints, to which such things are usually a godsend. For Alick immediately put the medal in the bottom of his trunk, beneath his "best blacks" which he wore only twice a year at Sacraments. He had heard that the editor of the "Netherby Chronicle and Advertiser" had collogued with the provost of the town to bring about this "fitting acknowledgment." Now Muckle Alick could not help the thing itself, but he could help people in Netherby getting to hear about it. Muckle Alick called upon the editor of the "Chronicle." He found him in, and engaged in the difficult task of penning an editorial which would not alienate the most thin-skinned subscriber, but which would yet be calculated to exasperate the editor of the opposition local paper published in the next county. "Maister Heron," said the head-porter, "I juist looked in to tell ye, that there's nocht to come oot in the 'Chronicle' aboot me the morn." "But, my dear sir," said the editor, "the item has been specially communicated, and is already set up." "Then it'll hae to be set doon again!" said Muckle Alick, firmly. "Impossible, impossible, I do assure you, my dear friend," remonstrated the editor. He was proprietor—editor and proprietor in one. Such editors in agricultural communities are always polite to subscribers.