I had some such experience with that prickly Scotchman, Fergus MacGregor. It began one evening when I found him alone by the office fire. He was sitting smoking his impossible pipe and gazing into the glowing open draft of the corpulent stove. He did not even look around when I came in, but reaching out one foot kicked a chair over toward me. Suddenly he fetched a big sigh, and said in a tone of voice I had not before heard:
"Night is the mither o' thoughts."
He relapsed into silence again. After some moments he took his pipe out and remarked to the stove:
"Oaks fall when reeds stand."
"Fergus," I said, "you're cryptic to-night. What do you consider yourself, an oak or a reed?"
"Well, David, I'm the oak that falls, while the reed stands."
I tried to draw him out still further on this interesting point, but not another explanatory word would he say. It was the beginning, however, of a new understanding of Fergus.
A little later, that very evening, Anthy and her uncle came in for a moment on their way home from some call or entertainment, and not a minute behind them, Nort. I saw Fergus's eyes dwell a moment on Anthy and then return to his moody observation of the fire. And Anthy was well worth a second glance that evening. The sharp winter wind had touched her cheeks with an unaccustomed radiance, and had blown her hair, where the scarf did not quite protect it, wavily about her temples. She was in great spirits.
"Fergus," she cried out, "what do you mean sitting here all humped up over the fire on a wonderful night like this!"
Here Nort broke in: