That night was like the day, with a full moon shining. The next afternoon I rode into Borrowstounness, my horse done out and myself sore from head to heel; and never in all my life have I seen a place with a more unwelcome aspect, for the streets were over the hoof in mud; the natives directed me in an accent like a tinker's whine; the Firth of Forth was wrapped in a haar or fog that too closely put me in mind of my prospects. But I had no right to be too particular, and in the course of an hour I had sold the mare for five pounds to a man of much Christian profession, who would not give a farthing more on the plea that she was likely stolen.
The five pounds and the clothes I stood in were my fortune: it did not seem very much, if it was to take me out of the reach of the long arm of the doomster; and thinking of the doomster I minded of the mole upon my brow, that was the most kenspeckle thing about me in the event of a description going about the country, so the first thing I bought with my fortune was a pair of scissors. Going into a pend close in one of the vennels beside the quay, I clipped off the hair upon the mole and felt a little safer. I was coming out of the close, pouching the scissors, when a man of sea-going aspect, with high boots and a tarpaulin hat, stumbled against me and damned my awkwardness.
“You filthy hog,” said I, exasperated at such manners, for he was himself to blame for the encounter; “how dare you speak to me like that?” He was a man of the middle height, sturdy on his bowed legs in spite of the drink obvious in his face and speech, and he had a roving gleed black eye. I had never clapped gaze on him in all my life before.
“Is that the way ye speak to Dan Risk, ye swab?” said he, ludicrously affecting a dignity that ill suited with his hiccough. “What's the good of me being a skipper if every linen-draper out of Fife can cut into my quarter on my own deck?”
“This is no' your quarter-deck, man, if ye were sober enough to ken it,” said I; “and I'm no linen-draper from Fife or anywhere else.”
And then the brute, with his hands thrust to the depth of his pockets, staggered me as if he had done it with a blow of his fist.
“No,” said he, with a very cunning tone, “ye're no linen-draper perhaps, but—ye're maybe no sae decent a man, young Greig.”
It was impossible for me to conceal even from this tipsy rogue my astonishment and alarm at this. It seemed to me the devil himself must be leagued against me in the cause of justice. A cold sweat came on my face and the palms of my hands. I opened my mouth and meant to give him the lie but I found I dare not do so in the presence of what seemed a miracle of heaven.
“How do you ken my name's Greig?” I asked at the last.
“Fine that,” he made answer, with a grin; “and there's mony an odd thing else I ken.”