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Before and behind his saddle were strapped the instruments and medicines the doctor might want, for he never knew what was before him. There were no specialists in Drumtochty, so this man had to do everything as best he could, and as quickly. He was chest doctor, and doctor for every other organ as well; he was accoucheur and surgeon; he was oculist and aurist; he was dentist and chloroformist, besides being chemist and druggist. It was often told how he was far up Glen Urtach when the feeders of the threshing-mill caught young Burnbrae, and how he only stopped to change horses at his house, and galloped all the way to Burnbrae, and flung himself off his horse, and amputated the arm, and saved the lad’s life.

“You wud hae thocht that every meenut was an hour,” said Jamie Soutar, who had been at the threshing, “an’ a’ ‘ll never forget the puir lad lyin’ as white as deith on the floor o’ the loft, wi’ his head on a sheaf, and Burnbrae haudin’ the bandage ticht an’ prayin’ a’ the while, and the mither greetin’ in the corner.

“‘Will he never come?’ she cries, an’ a’ heard the soond o’ the horse’s feet on the road a mile awa’ in the frosty air.

“‘The Lord be praised!’ said Burnbrae, and a’ slipped doon the ladder as the doctor came skelpin’ intae the close, the foam fleein’ frae his horse’s mooth.

“‘Whar is he?’ wes a’ that passed his lips, an’ in five meenuts he hed him on the feedin’ board, and wes at his wark–sic wark, neeburs! but he did it weel. An’ ae thing a’ thocht rael thochtfu’ o’ him: he first sent aff the laddie’s mither tae get a bed ready.

“‘Noo that’s feenished, and his constitution ‘ill dae the rest,’ and he carried the lad doon the ladder in his airms like a bairn, and laid him in his bed, and waits aside him till he wes sleepin’, and then says he, ‘Burnbrae, yir a gey lad never tae say, “Collie, will ye lick?” for a’ hevna tasted meat for saxteen hoors.’

“It was michty tae see him come intae the yaird that day, neeburs; the verra look o’ him wes victory.”

Jamie’s cynicism slipped off in the enthusiasm of this reminiscence, and he expressed the feeling of Drumtochty. No one sent for MacLure save in great straits, and the sight of him put courage in sinking hearts. But this was not by the grace of his appearance, or the advantage of a good bedside manner. A tall, gaunt, loosely made man, without an ounce of superfluous flesh on his body, his face burned a dark brick colour by constant exposure to the weather, red hair and beard turning gray, honest blue eyes that look you ever in the face, huge hands with wrist-bones like the shank of a ham, and a voice that hurled his salutations across two fields, he suggested the moor rather than the drawing-room. But what a clever hand it was in an operation–as delicate as a woman’s! and what a kindly voice it was in the humble room where the shepherd’s wife was weeping by her man’s bedside! He was “ill pitten thegither” to begin with, but many of his physical defects were the penalties of his work, and endeared him to the Glen. That ugly scar, that cut into his right eyebrow and gave him such a sinister expression, was got one night Jess slipped on the ice and laid him insensible eight miles from home. His limp marked the big snowstorm in the fifties, when his horse missed the road in Glen Urtach, and they rolled together in a drift. MacLure escaped with a broken leg and the fracture of three ribs, but he never walked like other men again. He could not swing himself into the saddle without making two attempts and holding Jess’s mane. Neither can you “warstle” through the peat-bogs and snow-drifts for forty winters without a touch of rheumatism. But they were honourable scars, and for such risks of life men get the Victoria Cross in other fields. MacLure got nothing but the secret affection of the Glen, which knew that none had ever done one tenth as much for it as this ungainly, twisted, battered figure, and I have seen a Drumtochty face soften at the sight of MacLure limping to his horse.