One evening in early autumn, when the sun, almost on the edge of the
horizon, was shining right in at the end of one of the principal
streets, filling its whole width with its glory of molten roses, all
the shopkeepers were standing in their doors. Little groups of country
people, bearing a curious relation to their own legs, were going in
various directions across the square. Loud laughter, very much like
animal noises, now and then invaded the ear; but the sound only rippled
the wide lake of the silence. The air was perfumed with the scent of
peat fires and the burning of weeds and potato-tops. There was no
fountain to complete the harmony, but the intermittent gushes from the
spout of the great pump in the centre of the square were no bad
substitute. At all events, they supplied the sound of water, without
which Nature's orchestra is not full.
Wattie Sim, the watchmaker, long and lank, with grey bushy eyebrows
meeting over his nose, wandered, with the gait of a heedless pair of
compasses, across from his own shop to Redford the bookseller's, at
whose door a small group was already gathered.
"Well, Wattie," said Captain Clashmach, "how goes the world with you?"
"Muckle the same's wi' yersel', Captain, and the doctor there,"
answered Wattie with a grin.
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