t, nor lift a book in their
studies without soiling their hands, whose windows looked on a street
and commanded the light of a grocer's shop instead of a sunset. It ill
became such miserables to be insolent, and Carmichael taught them
humility when he began to sound the praises of Drumtochty; but he could
not make townspeople understand the unutterable satisfaction of the
country minister, who even from old age and great cities looks back
with fond regret to his first parish on the slope of the Grampians.
Some kindly host wrestles with him to stay a few days more in
civilisation, and pledges him to run up whenever he wearies of his
exile, and the ungrateful rustic can hardly conceal the joy of his
escape. He shudders on the way to the station at the drip of the dirty
sleet and the rags of the shivering poor, and the restless faces of the
men and the unceasing roar of the traffic. Where he is going the white
snow is falling gently on the road, a cart full of sweet-smelling roots
is moving on velvet, the driver stops to exchange views with a farmer
who has been feeding his sheep, within the humblest cottage the fire is
burning clearly. With every mile northwards the Glenman's heart lifts;
and as he lands on his far-away little station, he draws a deep breath
of the clean, wholesome air. It is a long walk through the snow, but
there is a kindly, couthy smell from the woods, and at sight of the
squares of light in his home, weariness departs from a Drumtochty man.
Carmichael used to say that a glimpse of Archie Moncur sitting with his
sisters before the fire as he passed, and the wild turmoil of his dogs
within the manse as the latch of the garden gate clicked, and the flood
of light pouring out from the open door on the garden, where every
branch was feathered with snow, and to come into his study, where the
fire of pine logs was reflected from the familiar titles of his loved
books, gave him a shock of joy such as he has never felt since, even in
the days of his prosperity.

[Illustration: The driver stops to exchange views.]

"The city folk are generous with their wealth," he was saying to me
only last week, when I was visiting him in his West End manse and we
fell a-talking of the Glen, "and they have dealt kindly by me; they are
also full of ideas, and they make an inspiring audience for a preacher.
If any man has a message to deliver from the Eternal, then he had
better leave the wilderness and come to the city,