CHAPTER X 

THE YOUNG OFFICER 

It was a fine afternoon when the train ran down from the granite wilds round Cairnsmuir into a broad green valley. Behind, the red heath, strewn with boulders and scarred by watercourses, rolled upward into gathering clouds; in front, yellow stubble fields and smooth meadows lay shining in the light, with a river flashing through their midst. Whitney, watching the scene from a window, thought the change was typical of southern Scotland, which he had found a land of contrasts. 

They had left the _Rowan_ where the river mouth opened into a sheltered, hill-girt bay, and walked up a dale that was steeped in quiet pastoral beauty. It led them to a wind-swept tableland, in which lonely, ruffled lakes lay among the stones, and granite outcrops ribbed the desolate heath. There they had caught the train; and now it was running down to well-tilled levels, dotted with trim white houses and marked in the distance by the blue smoke of a town. Andrew had chosen the route to show Whitney the country, and he admitted that it had its charm. 

The train slowed down as it approached a station, and when it stopped Dick jumped up. 

"I may be able to get a paper here," he said, and leaped down on to the station platform, where shepherds with rough collies, cattle-dealers, and quarrymen stood waiting. 

Dick vanished among the crowd; but a few moments later he returned hurriedly, without his paper. 

"I nearly ran into old Mackellar!" he exclaimed with a chuckle. "But I dodged him!" 
Did it slow down?
The train slowed down as it approached a station, and when it stopped Dick jumped up. 