Tallisker was a man as quick in action as in resolve; the next night he left for London, it was no light journey in those days for a man of his years, and who had never in all his life been farther away from Perthshire than Edinburgh.

But he feared nothing.

He was going into the wilderness after his own stray sheep, and he had a conviction that any path of duty is a safe path.

He said little to any one.

The people looked strangely on him.