Page 35 - the-thirty-nine-steps

served in bitter regret.
I expressed my surprise that in him I should have met a
blueribbon stalwart.
‘Ay, but I’m a strong teetotaller,’ he said pugnaciously.
‘I took the pledge last Martinmas, and I havena touched a
drop o’ whisky sinsyne. Not even at Hogmanay, though I
was sair temptit.’
He swung his heels up on the seat, and burrowed a frow-
sy head into the cushions.
‘And that’s a’ I get,’ he moaned. ‘A heid hetter than hell
fire, and twae een lookin’ different ways for the Sabbath.’
‘What did it?’ I asked.
‘A drink they ca’ brandy. Bein’ a teetotaller I keepit off
the whisky, but I was nip-nippin’ a’ day at this brandy, and
I doubt I’ll no be weel for a fortnicht.’ His voice died away
into a splutter, and sleep once more laid its heavy hand on
him.
My plan had been to get out at some station down the
line, but the train suddenly gave me a better chance, for it
came to a standstill at the end of a culvert which spanned
a brawling porter-coloured river. I looked out and saw that
every carriage window was closed and no human figure ap-
peared in the landscape. So I opened the door, and dropped
quickly into the tangle of hazels which edged the line.
it would have been all right but for that infernal dog.
Under the impression that I was decamping with its mas-
ter’s belongings, it started to bark, and all but got me by the
trousers. This woke up the herd, who stood bawling at the
carriage door in the belief that I had committed suicide. I

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