Gairn, whose steep bulk heaved itself a blue haystack
above the level horizon of the moorland. He was dressed like any other
ploughman of the south uplands--rough homespun much the worse for wear,
and leggings the colour of the red soil which he was reversing with the
share of his plough. Yet there was that about Robert Fraser which
marked him no common man. When he paused at the top of the ascent, and
stood with his back against the horns of the plough, the countryman's
legacy from Adam of the Mattock, he pushed back his weatherbeaten straw
hat with a characteristic gesture, and showed a white forehead with
blue veins channelling it--a damp, heavy lock of black hair clinging to
it as in Severn's picture of John Keats on his deathbed. Robert Fraser
saw a couple of black specks which moved smoothly and evenly along the
top of the distant dyke of the highway. He stood still for a moment or
two watching them. As they came nearer, they resolved themselves into
a smart young man sitting in a well-equipped gig drawn by a
showily-actioned hone, and driven by a man in livery. As they passed
rapidly along the road the hand of the young man appeared in a careless
wave of recognition over the stone dyke, and Robert Fraser lifted his
slack reins in staid acknowledgment. It was more than a year since the
brothers had looked each other so nearly in the eyes. They were Dr.
Henry Fraser, the rising physician of Carn Edward, and his elder
brother Robert, once Student of Divinity at Edinburgh College, whom
three parishes knew as 'The Stickit Minister.'

When Robert Fraser stabled his horses that night and went into his
supper, he was not surprised to find his friend, Saunders M'Quhirr of
Drumquhat, sitting by the peat fire in the 'room.' Almost the only
thing which distinguished the Stickit Minister from the other small
farmers of the parish of Dullarg was the fact that he always sat in the
evening by himself ben the hoose, and did not use the kitchen in common
with his housekeeper and herd boy, save only at meal-times. Robert had
taken to Saunders ever since--the back of his ambition broken--he had
settled down to the farm, and he welcomed him with shy cordiality.

'You'll take a cup of tea, Saunders?' he asked.

'Thank ye, Robert, I wadna be waur o't,' returned his friend.

'I saw your brither the day,' said Saunders M'Quhirr, after the
tea-cups had been cleared away, and the silent housekeeper had replaced
the books upon