can had broken
the silence with a question:

"What's the psalm, Father, about the man 'who going forth doth mourn'?"

And with his eyes fixed on the hills the old minister had repeated:

"'That man who bearing precious seed
In going forth doth mourn,
He, doubtless, bringing back the sheaves
Rejoicing will return.'"

And Duncan had nodded his head and said, "That's it. 'Rejoicing will
return.'" And he had taken another long look at Cademuir.

Many wondered what had kept such a man as John Macdonald all his life in
a small town like Priorsford. He did more good, he said, in a little
place; he would be of no use in a city; but the real reason was he knew
his health would not stand the strain. For many years he had been a
martyr to a particularly painful kind of rheumatism. He never spoke of
it if he could help it, and tried never to let it interfere with his
work, but his eyes had the patient look that suffering brings, and his
face often wore a twisted, humorous smile, as if he were laughing at his
own pain. He was now sixty-four. His sons, so far as they were allowed,
had smoothed the way for their parents, but they could not induce their
father to retire from the ministry. "I'll give up when I begin to feel
myself a nuisance," he would say. "I can still preach and visit my
people, and perhaps God will let me die in harness, with the sound of
Tweed in my ears."

Mrs. Macdonald was, in Bible words, a "succourer of many." She was a
little stout woman with the merry heart that goes all the way, combined
with heavy-lidded, sad eyes, and a habit of sighing deeply. She affected
to take a sad view of everything, breaking into irrepressible laughter
in the middle of the most pessimistic utterances, for she was able to
see the humorous side of her own gloom. Mrs. Macdonald was a born giver;
everything she possessed she had to share. She was miserable if she had
nothing to bestow on a parting guest, small gifts like a few new-laid
eggs or a pot of home-made jam.

"You know yourself," she would say, "what a satisfied feeling it gives
you to come away from a place with even the tiniest gift."

Her popularity was immense. Sad people came to her because she sighed
with them and never tried to cheer them; dull people came to her
because she was never in offensive high spirits or in a boastful
mood--not even when her sons had done something particularly
striking--and happy people came to her, for, though she