All that night he never slept. He heard the hours strike one after the other; but try how he would he could not get to sleep. Over and over again he went through the horrible episode of the quicksand, from the time that Saft Tammie had broken his habitual silence to preach to him of the sin of vanity and to warn him. The question kept ever arising in his mind: “Am I then so vain as to be in the ranks of the foolish?” and the answer ever came in the words of the crazy prophet: “‘Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.’ Meet thyself face to face, and repent ere the quicksand shall swallow thee!” Somehow a feeling of doom began to shape itself in his mind that he would yet perish in that same quicksand, for there he had already met himself face to face.
In the grey of the morning he dozed off, but it was evident that he continued the subject in his dreams, for he was fully awakened by his wife, who said:
“Do sleep quietly! That blessed Highland suit has got on your brain. Don’t talk in your sleep, if you can help it!” He was somehow conscious of a glad feeling, as if some terrible weight had been lifted from him, but he did not know any cause of it. He asked his wife what he had said in his sleep, and she answered:
“You said it often enough, goodness knows, for one to remember it—‘Not face to face! I saw the eagle plume over the bald head! There is hope yet! Not face to face!’ Go to sleep! Do!” And then he did go to sleep, for he seemed to realise that the prophecy of the crazy man had not yet been fulfilled. He had not met himself face to face—as yet at all events.
He was awakened early by a maid who came to tell him that there was a fisherman at the door who wanted to see him. He dressed himself as quickly as he could—for he was not yet expert with the Highland dress—and hurried down, not wishing to keep the salmon-fisher waiting. He was surprised and not altogether pleased to find that his visitor was none other than Saft Tammie, who at once opened fire on him:
“I maun gang awa’ t’ the post; but I thocht that I would waste an hour on ye, and ca’ roond just to see if ye waur still that fou wi’ vanity as on the nicht gane by. An I see that ye’ve no learned the lesson. Well! the time is comin’, sure eneucht! However I have all the time i’ the marnins to my ain sel’, so I’ll aye look roond jist till see how ye gang yer ain gait to the quicksan’, and then to the de’il! I’m aff till ma wark the noo!” And he went straightway, leaving Mr. Markam considerably vexed, for the maids within earshot were vainly trying to conceal their giggles. He had fairly made up his mind to wear on that day ordinary clothes, but the visit of Saft Tammie reversed his decision. He would show them all that he was not a coward, and he would go on as he had begun—come what might. When he came to breakfast in full martial panoply the children, one and all, held down their heads and the backs of their necks became very red indeed. As, however, none of them laughed—except Titus, the youngest boy, who was seized with a fit of hysterical choking and was promptly banished from the room—he could not reprove them, but began to break his egg with a sternly determined air. It was unfortunate that as his wife was handing him a cup of tea one of the buttons of his sleeve caught in the lace of her morning wrapper, with the result that the hot tea was spilt over his bare knees. Not unnaturally, he made use of a swear word, whereupon his wife, somewhat nettled, spoke out: