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“The gudewife is keepin’ up a ding-dong frae mornin’ till nicht aboot ma face, and a’ ‘m fair deaved (deafened), so a’ ‘m watchin’ for MacLure tae get a bottle as he comes wast; yon’s him noo.”

The doctor made his diagnosis from horseback on sight, and stated the result with that admirable clearness which endeared him to Drumtochty:

“Confound ye, Hillocks, what are ye ploiterin’ aboot here for in the weet wi’ a face like a boiled beer? Div ye no ken that ye’ve a tetch o’ the rose (erysipelas), and ocht tae be in the hoose? Gae hame wi’ ye afore a’ leave the bit, and send a halflin’ for some medicine. Ye donnerd idiot, are ye ettlin tae follow Drums afore yir time?” And the medical attendant of Drumtochty continued his invective till Hillocks started, and still pursued his retreating figure with medical directions of a simple and practical character:

“A’ ‘m watchin’, an’ peety ye if ye pit aff time. Keep yir bed the mornin’, and dinna show yir face in the fields till a’ see ye. A’ll gie ye a cry on Monday,–sic an auld fule,–but there’s no ane o’ them tae mind anither in the hale pairish.”

Hillocks’s wife informed the kirkyard that the doctor “gied the gudeman an awful’ clearin’,” and that Hillocks “wes keepin’ the hoose,” which meant that the patient had tea breakfast, and at that time was wandering about the farm buildings in an easy undress, with his head in a plaid.

It was impossible for a doctor to earn even the most modest competence from a people of such scandalous health, and so MacLure had annexed neighbouring parishes. His house–little more than a cottage–stood on the roadside among the pines toward the head of our Glen, and from this base of operations he dominated the wild glen that broke the wall of the Grampians above Drumtochty–where the snow-drifts were twelve feet deep in winter, and the only way of passage at times was the channel of the river–and the moorland district westward till he came to the Dunleith sphere of influence, where there were four doctors and a hydropathic. Drumtochty in its length, which was eight miles, and its breadth, which was four, lay in his hand; besides a glen behind, unknown to the world, which in the night-time he visited at the risk of life, for the way thereto was across the big moor with its peat-holes and treacherous bogs. And he held the land eastward toward Muirtown so far as Geordie. The Drumtochty post travelled every day, and could carry word that the doctor was wanted. He did his best for the need of every man, woman, and child in this wild, straggling district, year in, year out, in the snow and in the heat, in the dark and in the light, without rest, and without holiday for forty years.

One horse could not do the work of this man, but we liked best to see him on his old white mare, who died the week after her master, and the passing of the two did our hearts good. It was not that he rode beautifully, for he broke every canon of art, flying with his arms, stooping till he seemed to be speaking into Jess’s ears, and rising in the saddle beyond all necessity. But he could ride faster, stay longer in the saddle, and had a firmer grip with his knees than any one I ever met, and it was all for mercy’s sake. When the reapers in harvest-time saw a figure whirling past in a cloud of dust, or the family at the foot of Glen Urtach, gathered round the fire on a winter’s night, heard the rattle of a horse’s hoofs on the road, or the shepherds, out after the sheep, traced a black speck moving across the snow to the upper glen, they knew it was the doctor, and, without being conscious of it, wished him God-speed.