onsultit; it wes on the table ready."

This recollection called up another in commendation of his father's
reading powers.

"The maister o' the Strathdalgie Schule wes a Protestant, ye ken, but
he wouldna' hae ony person read till him but my faither. He had to gae
till the schulemaister's bedside when he wes dyin'; for the puir mon
wouldna' hae the menister, as he likit a' the words clear."

Farquharson's quasi-official position was on one occasion the cause of
rather an unpleasant experience. One of his predecessors in office, an
old man named McConnachie, had been forced to retire from the teaching
profession on account of failing intellect. After an illness, when he
was already far advanced in years, his mind gradually gave way, until
he was nothing better than a harmless lunatic. No one grudged the old
man a little oatmeal or a bag of potatoes now and again, and he could
get milk for the asking from any of those who owned a cow. He lived
all by himself in a small house, and a kindly neighbor would go in
occasionally to "redd up"--in other words, put the place in order.

But the poor old fellow's lunacy became less harmless as he grew older.
It developed into a kind of kleptomania. Should a housewife have a
family wash hanging on her clothes-lines, it was not infrequently the
case that many of the articles would mysteriously disappear. The most
extraordinary objects would vanish from the houses--chimney ornaments,
cups, spoons, flatirons, buttons, photographs, and such like gear. For
a time no one suspected old McConnachie; though, upon reflection, after
the matter had been cleared up it appeared that many of the losers had
missed articles after one of his calls. When a venturous spirit
undertook to search the old man's habitation during his absence, a
store of miscellaneous objects came to light, which revealed the
hitherto unknown pilferer.

In another way, too, McConnachie became a nuisance to the community.
Perhaps some faint recollection of one of his duties as "Dominie" may
have led to it; but he began to show so violent a dislike toward any of
the children who might cross his path that he would do his best to give
them a good drubbing with his stick. In the case of the more simple he
sometimes succeeded in seizing hold before the child had attempted to
escape his clutches, and in giving the unfortunate culprit a good
reason for flying home in tears to exhibit to an angry mother the marks
of "t'