He had heard nothing of the great Glen Conquhar right-of-way case, when one fine morning he made his way down to the hamlet to see one of his scanty flock, whose church attendance had not been all that could be desired.  As he went down the hill he passed within a few feet of the newly painted trespass notice-board; but it was not till his return, with slow steps, a little weary with the uphill road and the heat of the day, that his eyes rested on the glaring white notice.  Still more slowly and deliberately he got his glasses out of their shagreen case, mounted their massive silver rims on his nose, and slowly read the legend which intimated that “Trespassers on this Private Road will be Prosecuted with the utmost Rigour of the Law.”

Having got to the large BY ORDER at the end, he calmly dismounted the benignant silver spectacles, returned them to the shagreen case, and so to the tail-pocket of his black coat.  Then, still more benignantly, he sought about among the roots of the trees till he found the stout branch of a fir broken off in some spring gale, but still tough and able-bodied.  With an energy which could hardly have been expected from one of his hoar hairs, the minister climbed part way up the pole, and dealt the obnoxious board such hearty thwacks, first on one side and then on the other, that in a trice it came tumbling down.

As he was picking it up and tucking it beneath his arm, the gamekeeper on the watch in some hidden sentry-box among the leaves came hurrying down.

“Oh, Mr. Grant, Mr. Grant!” he exclaimed in horror, “what are you doing with that board?”—­his professional indignation grievously at war with his racial respect for the clerical office.

“’Deed, Dugald, I’m just taking this bit spale boardie hame below my arm.  It will make not that ill firewood, and it has no business whatever to be cockin’ up there on the corner of my glebe.”

The end of the Great Glen Conquhar Right-of-Way Case.

VI

DOMINIE GRIER

A grey, grey world and a grey belief, True as iron and grey as grief; Worse worlds there are, worse faiths, in truth, Than the grey, grey world and the grey belief.

  “The Grey Land.”

What want ye so late with Dominie Grier?  To tell you the tale of my going on foot to the town of Edinburgh that I might preserve pure the doctrine and precept of the parish of Rowantree?  Ay, to tell of it I am ready, and with right goodwill.  Never a day do I sit under godly Mr. Campbell but I think on my errand, and the sore stroke that the deil and Bauldy Todd gat that day when I first won speech with the Lady Lochwinnoch.