In passing Ronald said good-bye again to the handsome setters and the spaniel and the old retriever; and then he went on and out of the station, but it was not to return to his books. The seeing of so many people going away to the north, the talking with the dogs, the trial of the big salmon-rod, had set his brain a little wild. What if he were to go back and beg of the withered old man to take him with him—ay, even as the humblest of gillies, to watch, gaff in hand, by the side of the broad silver-rippling stream, or to work in a boat on a blue-ruffled loch! To jump into a third-class carriage and know that the firm inevitable grip of the engine was dragging him away into the clearer light, the wider skies, the glad free air! No wonder they said that fisher folk were merry folk; the very jolting of the engine would in such a case have a kind of music in it; how easily could one make a song that would match with the swing of the train! It was in his head now, as he rapidly and blindly walked away along the Cowcaddens, and along the New City Road, and along the Western Road—random rhymes, random verses, that the jolly company could sing together as the engine thundered along—
Out of the station we rattle away,
Wi' a clangour of axle and wheel;
There's a merrier sound that we knew in the north—
The merry, merry shriek of the reel!
O you that shouther the heavy iron gun,
And have steep, steep braes to speel—
We envy you not; enough is for us
The merry, merry shriek of the reel!
When the twenty-four pounder leaps in the air,