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But the exercise and the excitement he most of all others delighted in, was riding; and had he been a country gentleman and not a clergyman, I don’t think he could have resisted fox-hunting. With the exception of that great genius in more than horsemanship, Andrew Ducrow, I never saw a man sit a horse as he did. He seemed inspired, gay, erect, full of the joy of life, fearless and secure. I have heard a farmer friend say if he had not been a preacher of the gospel he would have been a cavalry officer, and would have fought as he preached.

He was known all over the Upper Ward and down Tweeddale for his riding. “There goes the minister,” as he rode past at a swift canter. He had generally well-bred horses, or as I would now call them, ponies; if he had not, his sufferings from a dull, hardmouthed, heavy-hearted and footed, plebeian horse were almost comic. On his gray mare, or his little blood bay horse, to see him setting off and indulging it and himself in some alarming gambols, and in the midst of his difficulties, partly of his own making, taking off his hat or kissing his hand to a lady, made one think of “young Harry with his beaver up.” He used to tell with much relish, how, one fine summer Sabbath evening after preaching in the open air for a collection, in some village near, and having put the money, chiefly halfpence, into his handkerchief, and that into his hat, he was taking a smart gallop home across the moor, happy and relieved, when three ladies–I think, the Miss Bertrams of Kersewell–came suddenly upon him; off went the hat, down bent the head, and over him streamed the cherished collection, the ladies busy among the wild grass and heather picking it up, and he full of droll confusion and laughter.

The gray mare he had for many years. I can remember her small head and large eyes; her neat, compact body, round as a barrel; her finely flea-bitten skin, and her thorough-bred legs. I have no doubt she had Arabian blood. My father’s pride in her was quite curious. Many a wild ride to and from the Presbytery at Lanark, and across flooded and shifting fords, he had on her. She was as sweet-tempered and enduring, as she was swift and sure; and her powers of running were appreciated and applied in a way which he was both angry and amused to discover. You know what riding the bruse means. At a country wedding the young men have a race to the bridegroom’s home, and he who wins, brings out a bottle and glass and drinks the young wife’s health. I wish Burns had described a bruse; all sorts of steeds, wild, unkempt lads as well as colts, old broken-down thorough-breds that did wonders when soopled, huge, grave cart horses devouring the road with their shaggy hoofs, wilful ponies, etc. You can imagine the wild hurry-skurry and fun, the comic situations and upsets over a rough road, up and down places one would be giddy to look at.

Well, the young farmers were in the habit of coming to my father, and asking the loan of the mare to go and see a friend, etc., etc., praising knowingly the fine points and virtues of his darling. Having through life, with all his firmness of nature, an abhorrence of saying “No” to any one, the interview generally ended with, “Well, Robert, you may have her, but take care of her, and don’t ride her fast.” In an hour or two Robert was riding the bruse, and flying away from the crowd, Gray first, and the rest nowhere, and might be seen turning the corner of the farm-house with the victorious bottle in his uplifted hand, the motley pack panting vainly up the hill. This went on for long, and the gray was famous, almost notorious, all over the Upper Ward; sometimes if she appeared, no one would start, and she trotted the course. Partly from his own personal abstraction from outward country life, and partly from Uncle Johnston’s sense of waggery keeping him from telling his friend of the gray’s last exploit at Hartree Mill, or her leaping over the “best man” at Thriepland, my father was the last to hear of this equivocal glory of “the minister’s meer.” Indeed, it was whispered she had once won a whip at Lanark races. They still tell of his feats on this fine creature, one of which he himself never alluded to without a feeling of shame. He had an engagement to preach somewhere beyond the Clyde on a Sabbath evening, and his excellent and attached friend and elder, Mr. Kello of Lindsay-lands, accompanied him on his big plough horse. It was to be in the open air, on the river side. When they got to the Clyde they found it in full flood, heavy and sudden rains at the head of the water having brought it down in a wild spate. On the opposite side were the gathered people and the tent. Before Mr. Kello knew where he was, there was his minister on the mare swimming across, and carried down in a long diagonal, the people looking on in terror. He landed, shook himself, and preached with his usual fervor. As I have said, he never liked to speak of this bit of hardihood, and he never repeated it; but it was like the man–there were the people, that was what he would be at, and though timid for anticipated danger as any woman, in it he was without fear.