Castle Gay - MVK World

into the upper air. He had recovered his only confidant, and did not
mean to spare him. Sometimes he touched upon his daily task—its languors
and difficulties, the harassments of the trivial, the profound stupidity
of the middle-aged. He defended hotly his politics, and drew so
many fine distinctions between his creed and those of all other men, that
it appeared that his party was in the loyal, compact, and portable form of
his single self. Then ensued torrential confessions of faith and audacious
ambition. He was not splashing—he was swimming with a clean stroke
to a clear goal. With his pen and voice he was making his power felt, and
in time the world would listen to him. His message? There followed a
statement of ideals which was nobly eclectic. Dougal was at once nationalist
and internationalist, humanitarian and man of iron, realist and poet.
They were now in the Nick of the Threshes, where, in a pad of green
lawn between two heathery steeps, a well bubbled among mosses. The
thirsty idealist flung himself on the ground and drank deep. He rose
with his forelock dripping.
"I sometimes think you are slipping away from me, Jaikie," he said.
"You've changed a lot in the last two years… . You live in a different
kind of world from me, and every year you're getting less and less of a
Scotsman… . And I've a notion, when I pour out my news to you and
haver about myself, that you're criticising me all the time in your own
mind. Am I not right? You're terribly polite, and you never say much,
but I can feel you're laughing at me. Kindly, maybe, but laughing all the
same. You're saying to yourself, 'Dougal gets dafter every day. He's no
better than a savage.'"
Jaikie regarded the flushed and bedewed countenance of his friend,
and the smile that broadened over his small face was not critical.
"I often think you daft, Dougal. But then I like daftness."
"Anyway, you've none of it yourself. You're the wisest man I ever met.
That's where you and I differ. I'm always burning or freezing, and you
keep a nice, average, normal temperature. I take desperate likes and dislikes.
You've something good to say about the worst scallywag, and, if
you haven't, you hold your tongue. I'm all for flinging my cap over the
moon, while you keep yours snug on your head. No. No"—he quelled an
anticipated protest. "It's the same in your football. It was like that yesterday
afternoon. You never run your head against a stone wall. You wait
till you see your chance, and then you're on to it like forked lightning,
but you're determined not to waste one atom of your strength."
"That's surely Scotch enough," said Jaikie laughing. "I'm economical."
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