t as a solo
without a single member of the congregation daring to join.

"Ay," said Walter, "Royal disna hand wi' repeats. He yowls like fun. But
'Kilmarnock' and 'Martyrs' fit him fine. He thumps the passage boards
wi' his tail near as loud's ye do the Bible yersel'. Mair than that,
Royal gangs for the kye every nicht himsel'. A' that ye hae to say is
juist 'Kye, Royal--gae fetch them!' an' he's aff like a shot."

"How does he open the gates?" queried the minister.

"He lifts the bars wi' his nose, but he canna sneck them ahint him when
he comes back."

"And you think that he has a soul?" said the minister, to draw the boy
out.

"What think ye yersel', sir?" said Walter, who at bottom was a true
Scot, and could always answer one question by asking another.

"Well," answered the minister, making a great concession, "the Bible
tells us nothing of the future of the beasts that perish--"

"Who knoweth," said Walter, "the soul of the beast, whether it goeth
upward or whether it goeth downward to the ground?"

The minister took his way over the moor, crossing the wide peat-hags and
the deep trenches from which the neighbouring farmers of bygone
generations had cut the peat for their winter fires. He went with a long
swinging step very light and swift, springing from _tussock_ to
_tussock_ of dried brown bent in the marshy places.

At the great barn-door he came upon Saunders M'Quhirr, master of the
farm of Drumquhat, whose welcome to his minister it was worth coming a
hundred miles to receive.

"Come awa', Maister Cameron, and the mistress will get you a drink o'
milk, an' ye'll hae a bite o' denner wi' us gin ye can bide half an
hour!"

The minister went in and surprised the goodwife in the midst of the
clean and comely mysteries of the dairy. From her, likewise, he received
the warmest of welcomes. The relation of minister and people in
Galloway, specially among the poorer congregations who have to work hard
to support their minister, is a very beautiful one. He is their superior
in every respect, their oracle, their model, their favourite subject of
conversation; yet also in a special measure he is their property.
Saunders and Mary M'Quhirr would as soon have contradicted the
Confession of Faith as questioned any opinion of the minister's when he
spoke on his own subjects.

On rotation of crops, and specially on "nowt" beasts, his opinion was
"no worth a preen." It would not have been becoming in him to hav