Again he seemed to look intelligent, but he only shook his head vaguely.
"Well," I said, "if you do see any one like that let me know, and you will see some more shoots. Also I shall give you this."
I held up a new half crown and he laughed so joyfully that I began to have a faint hope he might prove of some use after all.
And yet when I had left him and resumed my walk back to the Rendalls' house, my spirits were not very high. As an ally Jock did not impress me with a feeling of great confidence, while his failure to recognise my description of the oil-skinned man depressed me unreasonably. I told myself that the opinion of the parish idiot on the subject of strangers was of small value. Besides, quite likely the oilskinned man would not be a stranger to the people in the neighbourhood. They might know him familiarly as a prosperous farmer or a hardy fisherman—or as their own doctor or their doctor's guest, or—no, he could not be their laird for Mr. Rendall was too tall. In short my talk with Jock had proved nothing one way or the other.
And yet my whole failure to come upon any trace of the gang in spite of all my ingenuity did set me thinking. Could it possibly be that my entire adventure had been an hallucination? I confessed frankly to myself that I have a pretty lively imagination, and I recalled vividly how I had almost collapsed on my way to the Scollays under the strain of an intense reaction, how my brain had whirled, and how I peopled the farm kitchen with full thrice the number of persons actually assembled. I had been conscious of all that, but supposing my brain had actually begun to whirl half an hour sooner, before I had become conscious of it? Might I not have imagined my whole mysterious adventure?
It was a nasty thought, for in that case what a superfluous fool I had made of myself since! But I faced it manfully, and sternly asked myself what the opinion of the average hard-headed, soberly reasoning man would be, if he were given the facts and requested to pronounce his verdict on them. What would be my own verdict if I were told such a yarn? Would I swallow it without demur?
"Be hanged if I would!" I said candidly.
By the time I got back to the big house, I had very nearly ceased to believe in the tale myself.