asks he aught for quit-rent, fee, or tithe--
Ho, Bald-head, wherefore sharpenest thy scythe?_

In the winter season the Clint of Drumore is the forlornest spot in
God's universe--twelve miles from anywhere, the roads barred with
snowdrift, the great stone dykes which climb the sides of apparently
inaccessible mountains sleeked fore and aft with curving banks of white.
In the howe of the hill, just where it bends away towards the valley of
the Cree, stood a cottage buried up to its eyes in the snow. Originally
a low thatch house, it had somewhat incongruously added on half a story,
a couple of storm-windows, and a roof of purple Parton slates. There
were one or two small office-houses about it devoted to a cow, a
Galloway shelty, and a dozen hens. This snowy morning, from the door of
the hen-house the lord of these dusky paramours occasionally jerked his
head out, to see if anything hopeful had turned up. But mostly he sat
forlornly enough, waiting with his comb drooping limply to one side and
a foot drawn stiffly up under his feathers.

Within the cottage there was little more comfort. It consisted, as
usual, of a "but" and a "ben," with a little room to the back, in which
there were a bed, a chair, and a glass broken at the corner nailed to
the wall. In this room a man was kneeling in front of the chair. He was
clad in rusty black, with a great white handkerchief about his throat.
He prayed long and voicelessly. At last he rose, and, standing stiffly
erect, slipped a small yellow photograph which he had been holding in
his hand into a worn leather case.

A man of once stalwart frame, now bowed and broken, he walked habitually
with the knuckles of one hand in the small of his back, as if he feared
that his frail framework might give way at that point; silvery hair
straggling about his temples, faded blue eyes, kindly and clouded under
white shocks of eyebrow--such was the Reverend Fergus Symington, now for
some years minister-emeritus. Once he had been pastor of the little hill
congregation of the Bridge of Cairn, where he had faithfully served a
scanty flock for thirty years. When he resigned he knew that it was but
little that his people could do for him. They were sorry to part with
him, and willingly enough accepted the terms which the Presbytery
pressed on them, in order to be at liberty to call the man of their
choice, a young student from a neighbouring glen, whose powers of fluent
speech were thought rema