e may have been the first who ever did so from choice, but was he
demeaned thereby? Assuredly not; and work in the fields never went half so
cheerfully on as when father and we boys were in the midst of the
servants. Our tutor was a young clergyman, and he, too, used to throw off
his black coat and join us.

At such times it would have done the heart of a cynic good to have been
there; song and joke and hearty laugh followed in such quick succession
that it seemed more like working for fun than anything else.

And our triumph of triumphs was invariably consummated at the end of
harvest, for then a supper was given to the tenants and servants. This
supper took place in the great hall of the castle--the hall that in
ancient days had witnessed many a warlike meeting and Bacchanalian feast.

Before a single invitation was made out for this event of the season every
sheaf and stook had to be stored and the stubble raked, every rick in the
home barn-yards had to be thatched and tidied; 'whorls' of turnips had to
be got up and put in pits for the cattle, and even a considerable portion
of the ploughing done.

'Boys,' my father would say then, pointing with pride to his lordly stacks
of grain and hay, 'Boys,

'"Peace hath her victories,
No less renowned than war."

And now,' he would add, 'go and help your tutor to write out the
invitations.'

So kindly-hearted was father that he would even have extended the right
hand of peace and fellowship to the Raes of Strathtoul. The head of this
house, however, was too proud; yet his pride was of a different kind from
father's. It was of the stand-aloof kind. It was even rumoured that Le
Roi, or Rae, had said at a dinner-party that my good, dear father brought
disgrace on the warlike name of M'Crimman because he mingled with his
servants in the field, and took a very personal interest in the welfare of
his crofter tenantry.

But my father had different views of life from this semi-French Rae of
Strathtoul. He appreciated the benefits and upheld the dignity, and even
sanctity, of honest labour. Had he lived in the days of Ancient Greece, he
might have built a shrine to Labour, and elevated it to the rank of
goddess. Only my father was no heathen, but a plain, God-fearing man, who
loved, or tried to love, his neighbour as himself.

If our father was a hero to us boys, not less so was he to our darling
mother, and to little Sister Flora