"Frae Wigtown to the Toon o' Ayr,
Portpatrick to the Cruives o' Cree;
Nae man need hope to bide safe there,
Unless he court wi' Kennedy."
"Body o' MacCallum More," chuckled the deputy-keeper of the Forest of Buchan, "but it was Kennedy that cam' coortin' to the 'Back o' Beyont' that time, whatever, I'm thinkin'!"
VI
NORTH TO THE ARCTIC
At home 'tis sunny September,
Though here 'tis a waste of snows,
So bleak that I scarce remember
How the scythe through the cornland goes.
With an aching heart I wander
Through the cold and curved wreaths,
And dream that I see meander
Brown burns amid purple heaths:
That I hear the stags on the mountains
Bray loud in the early morn,
And that scarlet gleams by the fountains
The red-berried wild-rose thorn.
"It was bad enough in the Free Command," said Constantine, leaning back in his luxurious easy-chair and joining his thin fingers easily before him as though he were measuring the stretch between thumb and middle finger. "But, God knows, it was Paris itself to the hell on earth up at the Yakût Yoort."
It was a strange sentence to hear, sitting thus in the commonplace drawing-room of a London house with the baker's boy ringing the area bell and the last edition of the Pall Mall being cried blatantly athwart the street.
But no one could look twice at Constantine Nicolai and remain in the land of the commonplace. I had known him nearly two years, and we had talked much—usually on literary and newspaper topics, seldom of Russia, and never of his experiences. Constantine and I had settled down together as two men will sometimes do, who work together and are drawn by a sympathy of unlikeness which neither can explain. Both of us worked on an evening paper of pronounced views upon moral questions and a fine feeling for a good advertising connection.