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wrote a polite letter to my Aunt Jessica informing her of my
regret at not being able to accept her kind invitation as I was
summoned to Scotland for an indefinite period.
My old friend's ministry in the Free Kirk of Scotland is drawing
to a close; he has lived in this manse, a stone's throw from his
grave, for fifty years, and the approaching change of habitat
will cost him nothing. He will still lie at the foot of his
beloved hills, and the purple moorland will spread around him for
all eternity, and the smell of the gorse and heather will fill
his nostrils as he sleeps. He is a bit of a pagan, old
McQuhatty, in spite of Calvin and the Shorter Catechism. I
should not wonder if he were the original of the story of the
minister who prayed for the puir Deil. He planted a rowan tree
by his porch when he was first inducted into the manse, and it
has grown up with him and he loves it as if it were a human
being. He has had many bonny arguments with it, he says, on
points of doctrine, and it has brought comfort to him in times of
doubt by shivering its delicate leaves and whispering, Dinna
fash yoursel, McQuhatty. The Lord God is a sensible body. He
declares that the words are articulate, and I suspect that in the
depths of his heart he believes that there are tongues in trees
and books in the running brooks, just as he is convinced that
there is good in everything.
He is a ripe and whimsical scholar, and his talk, even in infirm
old age, is marked by a Doric virility which has rendered his
companionship for these five days as stimulating as the moorland
air. How few men have this gift of discharging intellectual
invigoration. Indeed, I only know old McQuhatty who has it, and
a sportive Providence has carefully excluded mankind from its
benefits for half a century. Stay: it once fostered a genius who
arose in Campsie, and sent him strung with tonic to Edinburgh to
become a poet. But the poor lad drank whisky for two years
without cessation, so that he died, and McQuhatty's inspiration
was wasted. What intellectual stimulus can he afford, for
instance, to Sandy McGrath, an elder of the kirk whom I saw
coming up the brae on Sunday? An old ram stood in the path and,
as obstinate as he, refused to budge. And as they looked dourly
at each other, I wondered if the ram were dressed in black
broadcloth and McGrath in wool, whether either of their mothers

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