they a' think, minister," he said, speaking with difficulty.
"I cared nocht aboot it, ae way or the ither. I'm sure I aye wantit to
be a douce man like the lave. But Meg was sair, sair to leeve wi'. She
fair drave me till't. D'ye think the like o' that wull be ta'en into
account, as it were--up yonder?"

The minister assured him that it would, and the Old Tory died in peace.

V

THE GREAT RIGHT-OF-WAY CASE

_The Vandal and the Visigoth come here,
The trampler under foot, and he whose eyes,
Unblest, behold not where the glory lies;
The wallower in mire, whose sidelong leer_

_Degrades the wholesome earth--these all come near
To gaze upon the wonder of the hills,
And drink the limpid clearness of the rills.
Yet each returns to what he holds most dear_,

_To change the script and grind the mammon mills
Unpurified; for what men hither bring,
That take they hence, and Nature doth appear_

_As one that spends herself for sodden wills,
Who pearls of price before the swine doth fling,
And from the shrine casts out the sacred gear._

Glen Conquhar was a summer resort. Its hillsides had never been barred
by the intrusive and peremptory notice-board, a bugbear to ladies
strolling book in hand, a cock-shy to the children passing on their way
to school. The Conquhar was a swift, clear-running river coursing over
its bed of gneiss, well tucked-in on either side by green hayfields,
where the grasshopper for ever "burred," and the haymakers stopped with
elbows on their rakes to watch the passer-by. The Marquis had never
enforced his rights of exclusion in his Highland solitudes. His
shooting-lodge of Ben Dhu, which lay half a dozen miles to the north,
was tenanted only by himself and a guest or two during the months of
September and October. The visitors at the hotel above the Conquhar
Water saw now and then a tall figure waiting at the bridge or scanning
the hill-side through a pair of deer-stalker glasses. Then the
underlings of the establishment would approach and in awe-struck tones
whisper the information, "That's the Marquis!" For it is the next thing
in these parts to being Providence to be the Marquis of Rannoch.

The hotel of Glen Conquhar was far from the haunts of men. Its quiet was
never disturbed by the noise of roysterers. It was the summer home of a
number of quiet people from the south--fishing men chiefly, who loved to
hear the wat