It was my father who came home in the evening with his mouth full of poor Jim.  He had been deadly drunk since midday, had been down to Westhouse Links to fight the gipsy champion, and it was not certain that the man would live through the night.  My father had met Jim on the highroad, dour as a thunder-cloud, and with an insult in his eye for every man that passed him.  “Guid sakes!” said the old man.  “He’ll make a fine practice for himsel’, if breaking banes will do it.”

Cousin Edie laughed at all this, and I laughed because she did; but I was not so sure that it was funny.

On the third day afterwards, I was going up Corriemuir by the sheep-track, when who should I see striding down but Jim himself.  But he was a different man from the big, kindly fellow who had supped his porridge with us the other morning.  He had no collar nor tie, his vest was open, his hair matted, and his face mottled, like a man who has drunk heavily overnight.  He carried an ash stick, and he slashed at the whin-bushes on either side of the path.

“Why, Jim!” said I.

But he looked at me in the way that I had often seen at school when the devil was strong in him, and when he knew that he was in the wrong, and yet set his will to brazen it out.  Not a word did he say, but he brushed past me on the narrow path and swaggered on, still brandishing his ash-plant and cutting at the bushes.

Ah well, I was not angry with him.  I was sorry, very sorry, and that was all.  Of course I was not so blind but that I could see how the matter stood.  He was in love with Edie, and he could not bear to think that I should have her.  Poor devil, how could he help it?  Maybe I should have been the same.  There was a time when I should have wondered that a girl could have turned a strong man’s head like that, but I knew more about it now.

For a fortnight I saw nothing of Jim Horscroft, and then came the Thursday which was to change the whole current of my life.

I had woke early that day, and with a little thrill of joy which is a rare thing to feel when a man first opens his eyes.  Edie had been kinder than usual the night before, and I had fallen asleep with the thought that maybe at last I had caught the rainbow, and that without any imaginings or make-believes she was learning to love plain, rough Jock Calder of West Inch.  It was this thought, still at my heart, which had given me that little morning chirrup of joy.  And then I remembered that if I hastened I might be in time for her, for it was her custom to go out with the sunrise.

But I was too late.  When I came to her door it was half-open and the room empty.  Well, thought I, at least I may meet her and have the homeward walk with her.  From the top of Corriemuir hill you may see all the country round; so, catching up my stick, I swung off in that direction.  It was bright, but cold, and the surf, I remember, was booming loudly, though there had been no wind in our parts for days.  I zigzagged up the steep pathway, breathing in the thin, keen morning air, and humming a lilt as I went, until I came out, a little short of breath, among the whins upon the top.  Looking down the long slope of the farther side, I saw Cousin Edie, as I had expected; and I saw Jim Horscroft walking by her side.