Stair thought that it was a reckless thing to put ashore while the sun was still high above the horizon. Still the spot was a lonely one--on one side great heathy tracts rising slowly away towards the foothills of Criffel--on the other a turmoil of huge cliffs and purple summits to the west, while behind them all the expanse of Solway lay like polished silver, clean as a platter ready for the service of a great house. The two men walked steadily to and fro. The boat, propelled lustily by Godfrey of the saturnine smile, bounded towards the land. It grounded on a rapidly shelving beach on which they sprang ashore. Godfrey attached the boat to a stone, and gave her plenty of rope to ride. Then all three went to the encounter of the two men. Both of them were dressed in decent black with something vaguely official about it, and the taller of the two had a scrap of black cloth after the fashion of a college gown but infinitely shorter, thrown over his shoulders. The other was a smaller and tubbier man, pleasant to look upon, a man evidently who lived for and by good eating and drinking. He had a large book under his arm, so heavy that as often as the two paused in their walk he laid it carefully down on the sand and sat upon it--while the tall man, undisturbed, continued his monologue over his comrade's head. The two parties met at last, their shadows thrown far beyond them on the moist sand and mingling ludicrously as they altered their positions. "Aweel," said the tall man, "what's a' this?" His voice was not at all unkindly, and it was to Patsy he spoke. He turned in time to catch the little round man in the act of plumping down his big book on the sand, and he lifted him up again by inserting the hook of a huge forefinger in his collar as if he had been a deep-sea catch. "Stand up there, Saunders Duff! God made man to stand erect on his two feet, but you would be for ever hunkering like a monkey eatin' nuts. Chin up, and shoulders back, man! If you dinna ken your duty to King and Country, I ken mine!" "Aye, aye, skipper," said Saunders Duff, shaking his head sadly, "but this vollum is a plaguey heavy cargo and 'tis a long time between ports!" "It had need to be," said the tall man, "it contains weighty matters--matters that shall not run away as unprofitable water, as is so well said in the 'Book of the Wisdom.' But it appears to me, by what I have learned, that this young lady had some questions to ask in my presence. Well, Mistress Headstrong, if you will take my advice, refrain. I am of Paul's faction. It is meet for a woman to be silent. I say that without the least hope of having my advice attended to. Get ye up from off that book, Saunders Duff, or I, that am a 'Magister Artium' of the College of Edinburgh, will kick you into the salt tide, carefully retaining the folio which is worth many scores of Saunders Duffs!"