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.

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.