"There's juist aboot as muckle truth in it as there is in maist Netherby stories for common, after they hae gotten ten minutes' start," said Muckle Alick. "What is your version o't?" said his wife, never taking her eyes off her husband. "O, it was naething to tell aboot," said Muckle Alick. "There was some drovers in a carriage where they had nae business, and they wadna come oot, till I gaed in to them—and then they cam' oot! And the wee laddie an' the bairn were comin' alang the line afore the engine. And Geordie couldna stop. So I gied them a bit yirk oot and gat a dunch in the back wi' the buffer." Mirren took her husband by the rough velveteen coat-sleeve. "My man!" she said, rubbing her cheek against it. "But what for did ye no tell me?" "I was gaun to tell ye the morn's mornin'," said Alick. "There was nae harm dune, ye see, but yin o' my gallus buttons riven off an' the buffer of Geordie's engine smashed. I was gaun to tell ye in the mornin' aboot the button needing sewin' on." "Did ye ever see siccan auld fules," said Tam Fraser, as he and his wife went home, "rubbin' her cheek again his airm, that's as thick as a pump theekit frae the frost wi' strae rapes?" "Haud your tongue, Tam," said his wife, whose temper had suffered; "if I had a man like that I wad rub my cheek against his trouser leg, gin it pleasured him, the day by the length." ADVENTURE XLIII. TOWN KNIGHT AND COUNTRY KNIGHT. Mr. Cleg Kelly awoke early on the day upon which he was to make the bold adventure of getting to Netherby Junction without enriching the railway company by the amount of his fare. But his conscience was clean; he was going to work his passage. It is true that neither the general manager nor yet the traffic inspector had been consulted in the matter. But for the sake of Cleg's friend (to be exact, Cleaver's boy's sweetheart's fellow-servant, cook at Bailie Holden's), Duncan Urquhart was willing (and he believed able) to engineer Cleg's passage to Netherby without fee or reward. Duncan was friendly with the guard of his goods train, which is a thing not too common with those who have to run goods trains together, week in and week out. The shunting at night in particular is wearing to the temper, especially in the winter time, when it is mostly dark in an hour or two whenever your train happens to start. "Can you stand there and turn a brake?" said Duncan to Cleg, setting him in a small compartment by himself; "screw her up whenever we are running downhill. Ye will ken when by the gurring and shaking."