_Auld Granny Grey Pow, Gather hame the weans._ The singer's voice sang this verse of the Poet of the Iron Road[6] so gaily that Cleg felt that his quarters for the night were assured. He was about to step within when a new voice spoke. "'Deed and it micht serve ye better a deal, Poet Jock, gin ye wad set doon your feet and lift your Bible to tak' a lesson to yoursel', instead o' rantin' there at a gilravage o' vain sangs—aye, even wastin' your precious time in makkin' them, when ye micht be either readin' the Company's rules or thinkin' aboot the concerns o' your never-dying sowl!" "You haud your tongue, Auld Chairlie," cried the singer, pausing a moment, but not turning round; "gin ye hadna missed thae troots the nicht and lost your otter to the keepers in Loch Spellanderie, ye wadna hae been sitting there busy wi' Second Chronicles!" And again the singer took up his ranting melody: Bring in Rab to get him washed, Weel I ken the loon, Canna do unless he be Dirt frae fit to croon. Tam and Wull are juist the same For a' I tak' sic pains— _Auld Granny Grey Pow, Gather hame the weans._ So the singer sang, and ever as he came to the refrain he cuddled an imaginary fiddle under his chin and played it brisk and tauntingly like a spring: _Auld Granny Grey Pow, Gather hame the weans._ Then, before another word could be spoken, Cleg stepped inside. "Guidnicht to ye a'!" he said politely. The man who had been called Poet Jock took down his feet from the top of the stove so quickly that the legs of the chair slipped from under him, and he came down upon the floor of the carriage with a resounding thump. Auld Chairlie, a white-haired old man who sat under a lamp with a large book on his knee, also stood up so suddenly that the volume slipped to the floor. "O mercy! Lord, preserve me, what's this?" he cried, his teeth chattering in his head as he spoke. "Wha may you be and what do ye want?" asked poet Sandy, without, however, getting up from the floor. "I'm juist Cleg Kelly frae the Sooth Back," said the apparition. "And whaur got ye that otter and troots?" broke in Auld Chairlie, who could not take his eyes off them. "I got them in the loch. Did ye think they grew in the field, man?" retorted Cleg, whose natural man was rising within him at the enforced catechism. "Preserve us a'—I thocht ye had been either the deil or a gamekeeper!" said Auld Chairlie, with intense earnestness; "weel, I'm awesome glad ye are no a game watcher, at ony rate. We micht maybe hae managed to gie the deil a bit fley by haudin' the muckle Bible to his e'e. But gamekeepers are a' juist regairdless heathen loons that care neither for Kirk nor minister—except maybe an orra while at election time."