"'The Lord be praised!' said Burnbrae, and a' slipped doon the ladder
as the doctor came skelpin' intae the close, the foam fleein' frae his
horse's mooth.

"'Whar is he?' wes a' that passed his lips, an' in five meenuts he hed
him on the feedin' board, and wes at his wark--sic wark, neeburs! but he
did it weel. An' ae thing a' thocht rael thochtfu' o' him: he first sent
aff the laddie's mither tae get a bed ready.

"'Noo that's feenished, and his constitution 'ill dae the rest,' and he
carried the lad doon the ladder in his airms like a bairn, and laid him
in his bed, and waits aside him till he wes sleepin', and then says he,
'Burnbrae, yir a gey lad never tae say, "Collie, will ye lick?" for a'
hevna tasted meat for saxteen hoors.'

"It was michty tae see him come intae the yaird that day, neeburs; the
verra look o' him wes victory."

Jamie's cynicism slipped off in the enthusiasm of this reminiscence, and
he expressed the feeling of Drumtochty. No one sent for MacLure save in
great straits, and the sight of him put courage in sinking hearts. But
this was not by the grace of his appearance, or the advantage of a good
bedside manner. A tall, gaunt, loosely made man, without an ounce of
superfluous flesh on his body, his face burned a dark brick colour
by constant exposure to the weather, red hair and beard turning gray,
honest blue eyes that look you ever in the face, huge hands with
wrist-bones like the shank of a ham, and a voice that hurled his
salutations across two fields, he suggested the moor rather than the
drawing-room. But what a clever hand it was in an operation--as delicate
as a woman's! and what a kindly voice it was in the humble room where
the shepherd's wife was weeping by her man's bedside! He was "ill pitten
thegither" to begin with, but many of his physical defects were the
penalties of his work, and endeared him to the Glen. That ugly scar,
that cut into his right eyebrow and gave him such a sinister expression,
was got one night Jess slipped on the ice and laid him insensible eight
miles from home. His limp marked the big snowstorm in the fifties, when
his horse missed the road in Glen Urtach, and they rolled together in a
drift. MacLure escaped with a broken leg and the fracture of three ribs,
but he never walked like other men again. He could not swing himself
into the saddle without making two attempts and holding Jess's mane.
Neither can you "warstle" through the peat-bogs and snow-dri