Page:Buchan - The Thirty-Nine Steps (Grosset Dunlap, 1915).djvu/164

 platform, and I thought I had better wait to ask my way till I was clear of the place.

The road led through a wood of great beeches and then into a shallow valley with the green backs of downs peeping over the distant trees. After Scotland the air smelled heavy and flat, but infinitely sweet, for the limes and chestnuts and lilac-bushes were domes of blossom. Presently I came to a bridge, below which a clear, slow stream flowed between snowy beds of water-butter-cups. A little above it was a mill; and the lasher made a pleasant cool sound in the scented dusk. Somehow the place soothed me and put me at my ease. I fell to whistling as I looked into the green depths, and the tune which came to my lips was "Annie Laurie."

A fisherman came up from the waterside, and as he neared me he, too, began to whistle. The tune was infectious, for he followed my suit. He was a huge man in untidy old flannels and a wide-brimmed hat, with a canvas bag slung on his shoulder. He nodded to me, and I thought I had never seen a shrewder