The drunken shepherd

Last night I departed the train at a station well short of Newton Stewart and began walking into the countryside. In the early evening I came across a shepherd's cottage where I managed to gain a bed in the barn for the night.

This morning I walked back to the direction of the railway, but planned to join it a couple of stops further on from where I had alighted. This I hoped would put the police off my scent.

Over a long ridge of moorland I took my road, skirting the side of a high hill which the shepherd had called Cairnsmore of Fleet. Nesting curlews and plovers were crying everywhere, and the links of green pasture by the streams were dotted with young lambs. By and by I came to swell of moorland which dipped to the vale of a little river, and a mile away in the heather I saw the smoke of a train.

The only other occupant of my carriage was an old sleeping shepherd with his dog and on the cushion beside him was copy of that morning's Scotsman. I sneaked a look at it in case there was news about the murder. After pinning it on the milkman for a day, Scotland Yard were now looking for a man who escaped from London on one of the northern railway lines.

As the train approached the stop I had alighted at yesterday it stopped to let the westbound train pass. I noticed on the platform three policemen asking questions of the station master. I had to do something and decided to make my departure there and then. I opened the carriage door and jumped out into the heather below. The dog awoke of course and began barking which awoke the shepherd. The shepherd was drunk and stood up, only to trip over his dog and out the open carriage door. My departure could not have been more public if I had left with a bugler and brass band. Fortunately the shepherd's tumbling provided a welcome diversion and I was able to escape into the gloom of the evening.

Tonight after a long trek, I came across a remote inn and have a comfortable bed for the night.

~Franklin P. Scudder arrives~
~The body in number 15~
~The inquest and darker dealings~
~Scudder has been murdered~
~The milkman sets out on his travels~