But as the train began to move more quickly, Hamish’s hands, that held firmly by the wooden seat on which he was sitting, tightened and still further tightened their grasp, and his teeth got clinched, while there was an anxious look in his eyes.  At length, as the train swung into a good pace, his fear got the better of him, and he called out,—­

“Colin, Colin, she’s run away?”

And then Colin Laing laughed aloud, and began to assume great airs; and told Hamish that he was no better than a lad kept for herding the sheep, who had never been away from his own home.  This familiar air reassured Hamish; and then the train stopping at Abbey Wood proved to him that the engine was still under control.

“Oh yes, Hamish,” continued his travelled cousin, “you will open your eyes when you see London; and you will tell all the people when you go back that you have never seen so great a place; but what is London to the cities and the towns and the palaces that I have seen?  Did you ever hear of Valparaiso, Hamish?  Oh yes, you will live a long time before you will get to Valparaiso!  And Rio:  why, I have known mere boys that have been to Rio.  And you can sail a yacht very well, Hamish; and I do not grumble that you would be the master of the yacht, though I know the banks and the channels a little better than you, and it was quite right of you to be the master of the yacht; but you have not seen what I have seen.  And I have been where there are mountains and mountains of gold—­”

“Do you take me for a fool, Colin?” said Hamish, with a contemptuous smile.

“Not quite that,” said the other, “but am I not to believe my own eyes?”

“And if there were the great mountains of gold,” said Hamish, “why did you not fill your pockets with the gold? and would not that be better than selling whiskey in Greenock?”

“Yes; and that shows what an ignorant man you are, Hamish,” said the other, with disdain.  “For do you not know that the gold is mixed with quartz and you have got to take the quartz out?  But I dare say now you do not know what quartz is; for it is a very ignorant man you are, although you can sail a yacht.  But I do not grumble at all.  You are master of your own yacht, just as I am the master of my own shop.  But if you were coming into my shop, Hamish, I would say to you, ’Hamish, you are the master here, and I am not the master; and you can take a glass of anything that you like.’  That is what people who have travelled all over the world, and seen princes and great cities and palaces, call politeness.  But how could you know anything about politeness? You have lived only on the west coast of Mull; and they do not even know how to speak good Gaelic there.”

“That is a lie, Colin!” said Hamish, with decision, “We have better Gaelic there than any other Gaelic that is spoken.”

“Were you ever in Lochaber, Hamish?”

“No, I was never in Lochaber.”