As for Dand, it will be enough to describe their first meeting, when Frank had been whipping a river and the rustic celebrity chanced to come along the path.
"I'm told you're quite a poet," Frank had said.
"Wha tell't ye that, mannie ?" had been the unconciliating answer.
"O, everybody!" says Frank.
"God! Here's fame!" said the sardonic poet, and he had passed on his way.
Come to think of it, we have here perhaps a truer explanation of Frank's failures.

Had he met Mr.Sheriff Scott he could have turned a neater compliment, because Mr.Scott would have been a friend worth making.
Dand, on the other hand, he did not value sixpence, and he showed it even while he tried to flatter.

Condescension is an excellent thing, but it is strange how one-sided the pleasure of it is! He who goes fishing among the Scots peasantry with condescension for a bait will have an empty basket by evening.
In proof of this theory Frank made a great success of it at the Crossmichael Club, to which Archie took him immediately on his arrival; his own last appearance on that scene of gaiety.

Frank was made welcome there at once, continued to go regularly, and had attended a meeting (as the members ever after loved to tell) on the evening before his death.
Young Hay and young Pringle appeared again.

There was another supper at Windiclaws, another dinner at Driffel; and it resulted in Frank being taken to the bosom of the county people as unreservedly as he had been repudiated by the country folk.