"Noat to-night, Mr. Gourlay," he stammered--and his unusual flutter of refusal might have warned Gourlay--"noat to-night, if _you_ please; noat to-night, if _you_ please. As a matter of fact--eh--what I really came into the town for, doan't you see, was--eh--to attend the meeting the Provost has convened about the railway. You'll come down to the meeting, will ye noat?" He wanted to get Gourlay away from the House with the Green Shutters. It would be easier to quarrel with him out of doors. But Gourlay gaped at him across the table, his eyes big with surprise and disapproval. "Huh!" he growled, "I wonder at a man like you giving your head to that! It's a wheen damned nonsense." "Oh, I'm no so sure of that," drawled the Templar. "I think the railway means to come." The whole country was agog about the new railway. The question agitating solemn minds was whether it should join the main line at Fechars, thirty miles ahead, or pass to the right, through Fleckie and Barbie, to a junction up at Skeighan Drone. Many were the reasons spluttered in vehement debate for one route or the other. "On the one side, ye see, Skeighan was a big place a'readys, and look what a centre it would be if it had three lines of rail running out and in! Eh, my, what a centre! Then there was Fleckie and Barbie--they would be the big towns! Up the valley, too, was the shortest road; it would be a daft-like thing to build thirty mile of rail, when fifteen was enough to establish the connection! And was it likely--I put it to ainy man of sense--was it likely the Coal Company wouldn't do everything in their power to get the railway up the valley, seeing that if it didn't come that airt they would need to build a line of their own?"--"Ah, but then, ye see, Fechars was a big place too, and there was lots of mineral up there as well! And though it was a longer road to Fechars and part of it lay across the moors, there were several wee towns that airt just waiting for a chance of growth! I can tell ye, sirs, this was going to be a close question!"