Upon a quiet, gray December afternoon, nine years and more from the June day when he had fished in the glen and Mother Binning had told him of her vision of the Jacobite gathering at Braemar, English Strickland, walking for exercise to the village and back, found himself overtaken by Mr. M’Nab, the minister who in his white manse dwelt by the white kirk on the top of the windy hill.  This was, by every earthly canon, a good man, but a stern and unsupple.  He had not been long in this parish, and he was sweeping with a strong, new besom.  The old minister, to his mind, had been Erastian and lax, weak in doctrine and in discipline of the fold.  Mr. M’Nab meant not to be weak.  He loathed sin and would compel the sinner also to loathe it.  Now he came up, tall and darkly clad, and in his Calvinistic hand his Bible.

“Gude day, sir!”

“Good day, Mr. M’Nab!” The two went on side by side.  The day was very still, the sky an even gray, snow being prepared.  “You saw the laird?”

“Aye.  He’s verra low.”

“He’ll not recover I think.  It’s been a slow failing for two years—­ever since Mrs. Jardine’s death.”

“She was dead before I came to this kirk.  But once, when I was a young man, I stayed awhile in these parts.  I remember her.”

“She was the best of women.”

“So they said.  But she had not that grip upon religion that the laird has!”

“Maybe not.”

Mr. M’Nab directed his glance upon the Glenfernie tutor.  He did not think that this Englishman, either, had much grip upon religion.  He determined, at the first opportunity, to call his attention to that fact and to strive to teach his fingers how to clasp.  He had a craving thirst for the saving of souls, and to draw one whole from Laodicea was next best to lifting from Babylon.  But to-day the laird and his spiritual concerns had the field.

“He comes, by the mother’s side, at least, of godly stock.  His mother’s father was martyred for the faith in the auld persecuting time.  His grandmother wearied her mind away in prison.  His mother suffered much when she was a lassie.”

“It’s small wonder that he has nursed bitterness,” said Strickland.  “He must have drunk in terror and hate with her milk....  He conquered the terror.”

“’Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?  I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.’—­What else should his heart do but burn with a righteous wrath?”

Strickland sighed, looking at the quiet gray hills and the vast, still web of cloud above.  “It’s come to be a withering fire, hunting fuel everywhere!  I remember when he held it in bounds, even when for a time it seemed to die out.  But of late years it has got the better of him.  At last, I think, it is devouring himself.”

M’Nab made a dissenting sound.  “He has got the implicit belief in God that I see sair lack of elsewhere!  He holds fast to God.”