We had been steadily approaching the farm-steading of Drumglass, where it sits pleasantly under the hill looking down over the water-meadows, the while Nathan Gemmell told me his grandfather’s tale showing how a man ought to rule the parish of Balmaghie.

We had gotten almost to the door of the farm when we saw a horse and rider top the heathery fell to the left, and sweep down upon us at a tearing gallop.

The old man, hearing the clatter of stones, turned quickly.

“Alexander-Jonita!” he exclaimed, shaking his head with fond blame towards the daring rider, “I declare that lassie will break neck-bone some o’ thae days. And that will be seen!”

With dark hair flying in the wind, eyes gleaming like stars, short kirtle driven back{130} from her knees by the rush of the horse’s stride, came a girl of eighteen or twenty on the back of a haltered but saddle-free mare.

Whether, as her father had boasted, the girl was riding astride, or whether she sat in the new-fangled way of the city ladies, I cannot venture to decide. For with a sharp turn of the hempen bridle she reined her beast within a few yards of us, and so had leaped nimbly to the ground before the startled senses could take in all the picture.

“Lassie,” cried the elder, with a not intolerant reproof in his tones, “where hae ye been that the kirk and the service of God saw ye not this day?”

The girl came fearlessly forward, looking me directly in the eyes. The reins were yet in her hand.

“Father,” she said, gently enough, but without looking at him, “I had the marches to ride, the ‘aval’ sheep to turn, the bitten ewes to dress with tar, the oxen to keep in bound, the horses to water; besides which, Jean wanted my stockings and Sunday gear to be braw the day at the kirk. So I had e’en to bide at hame!”

“Thing shame o’ yoursel’, Alexander-Jonita!”{131} cried her father, “ye are your mither’s dochter. Ye tak’ not after the douce ways o’ your faither. Spite o’ a’ excuses, ye should hae been at the kirk.”

“Is this the young minister lad?” said Alexander-Jonita, looking at me more with the assured direct gaze of a man than with the customary bashfulness of a maid. Singularly fearless and forthlooking was her every glance.

“Even so,” said her father, “the lad has spoken weel this day!”

She looked me through and through, till I felt the manhood in me stir to vexation, not with shyness alone, but for very shame to be thus outfaced and made into a bairn.

She spoke again, still, however, keeping her eyes on me.

“I am no kirk-goer—no, nor yet great kirk-lover. But I ken a man when I see him,” said the strange maid, holding out her hand frankly. And, curiously enough, I took it with an odd sense of gratitude and comradeship.

“The kirk,” said I, “is not indeed all that it might be, but the kirk and conventicle alike are the gathering places of those that love the good way. We are not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together.”{132}

“Even so, minister!” she said, with some sudden access of gravity, “and this day I have been preaching the Gospel to the sheep and the oxen, the kye and the horse-beasts within the bounds of my parish, while ye spake your good word to human creatures that were maybe somewhat less grateful.”

“The folk to whom I spake had immortal souls,” said I, a little indignant to be thus bearded by a lassie.

“And how,” she retorted, turning on me quick as a fire-flash, “ken ye that the beasts have none, or that their spirit goeth downward into the earth? Have they not bodies also and gratitude? There was a sore distressed sheep this morning at Tornorrach that looked at me first with eyes that spake a prayer. But after I had cleansed and dressed the hurt, it breathed a benediction, sweet as any said in the Kirk of Balmaghie this day!”

“Nevertheless it was for men and women, perishing in sin, that Christ died!” I persisted, not willing to be silenced.

“How ken ye that?” she said; “did not the same Lord make the sheep on the hills and the kye in the byres? Will He that watches the sparrow fall think it wrong to lift a sheep out{133} of a pit on the Sabbath? The Pharisees are surely not all dead to this day!”

“E&rsq............