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On a sudden, the silence was broken by a blow on the house-door.

My two companions, as is the way of women, set up a scream. I was startled myself, wondering who could be out in the rain and the darkness and striking at the door of the house. A stranger it must be. Light or dark, any person in or near Cauldkirk, wanting admission, would know where to find the bell-handle at the side of the door. I waited a while to hear what might happen next. The stroke was repeated, but more softly. It became me as a man and a minister to set an example. I went out into the passage, and I called through the door, “Who’s there?”

A man’s voice answered–so faintly that I could barely hear him–“A lost traveler.”

Immediately upon this my cheerful sister expressed her view of the matter through the open parlor door. “Brother Noah, it’s a robber. Don’t let him in!”

What would the Good Samaritan have done in my place? Assuredly he would have run the risk and opened the door. I imitated the Good Samaritan.

A man, dripping wet, with a knapsack on his back and a thick stick in his hand, staggered in, and would, I think, have fallen in the passage if I had not caught him by the arm. Judith peeped out at the parlor door, and said, “He’s drunk.” Felicia was behind her, holding up a lighted candle, the better to see what was going on. “Look at his face, aunt,” says she. “Worn out with fatigue, poor man. Bring him in, father–bring him in.”

Good Felicia! I was proud of my girl. “He’ll spoil the carpet,” says sister Judith. I said, “Silence, for shame!” and brought him in, and dropped him dripping into my own armchair. Would the Good Samaritan have thought of his carpet or his chair? I did think of them, but I overcame it. Ah, we are a decadent generation in these latter days!

“Be quick, father”‘ says Felicia; “he’ll faint if you don’t give him something!”

I took out one of our little drinking cups (called among us a “Quaigh”), while Felicia, instructed by me, ran to the kitchen for the cream-jug. Filling the cup with whisky and cream in equal proportions, I offered it to him. He drank it off as if it had been so much water. “Stimulant and nourishment, you’ll observe, sir, in equal portions,” I remarked to him. “How do you feel now?”

“Ready for another,” says he.

Felicia burst out laughing. I gave him another. As I turned to hand it to him, sister Judith came behind me, and snatched away the cream-jug. Never a generous person, sister Judith, at the best of times–more especially in the matter of cream.

He handed me back the empty cup. “I believe, sir, you have saved my life,” he said. “Under Providence,” I put in–adding, “But I would remark, looking to the state of your clothes, that I have yet another service to offer you, before you tell us how you came into this pitiable state.” With that reply, I led him upstairs, and set before him the poor resources of my wardrobe, and left him to do the best he could with them. He was rather a small man, and I am in stature nigh on six feet. When he came down to us in my clothes, we had the merriest evening that I can remember for years past. I thought Felicia would have had a hysteric fit; and even sister Judith laughed–he did look such a comical figure in the minister’s garments.

As for the misfortune that had befallen him, it offered one more example of the preternatural rashness of the English traveler in countries unknown to him. He was on a walking tour through Scotland; and he had set forth to go twenty miles a-foot, from a town on one side of the Highland Border, to a town on the other, without a guide. The only wonder is that he found his way to Cauldkirk, instead of perishing of exposure among the lonesome hills.