aid the stranger affably, as the minister came up to
him. "Lovely weather!"

Mr Burnett, nothing loath to hear a fresh voice, stopped and smiled and
agreed that the day was fine. He saw now that the stranger was a
middle-sized man with a full fair moustache, jovial eyes behind his
gold-rimmed spectacles, and a rosy healthy colour; while his manner was
friendliness itself. The minister felt pleasantly impressed with him
at once.

"Any trout in this stream?" inquired the stranger.

Mr Burnett answered that it was famed as a fishing river, at which the
stranger seemed vastly interested and pleased, and put several
questions regarding the baskets that were caught. Then he grew a
little more serious and said--

"I hope you will pardon me, sir, for thanking you for a very excellent
sermon. As I happened to be motoring past just as church was going in
I thought I'd look in too. But I assure you I had no suspicion I
should hear so good a discourse. I appreciated it highly."

Though a modest man, Mr Burnett granted the stranger's pardon very
readily. Indeed, he became more favourably impressed with him than
ever.

"I am very pleased to hear you say so," he replied, "for in an
out-of-the-way place like this one is apt to get very rusty."

"I don't agree with you at all, sir," said the stranger energetically,
"if you'll pardon my saying so. In my experience--which is pretty
wide, I may add--the best thinking is done in out-of-the-way places. I
don't say the showiest, mind you, but the _best_!"

Again the minister pardoned him without difficulty.

"Of course, one needs a change now and then, I admit," continued the
stranger. "But, my dear sir, whatever you do, don't go and bury
yourself in a crowd!"

This struck Mr Burnett as a novel and very interesting way of putting
the matter. He forgot all about the dinner awaiting him at the manse,
and when the stranger offered him a very promising-looking cigar, he
accepted it with pleasure, and leaned over the parapet beside him.
There, with his eyes on the running water, he listened and talked for
some time.

The stranger began to talk about the various charming out-of-the-way
places in Scotland. It seemed he was a perfervid admirer of everything
Scottish, and had motored or tramped all over the country from Berwick
to the Pentland Firth. In fact, he had even crossed the waters, for he
presently burst forth into a eulogy of the Windy Islands.

"The most deligh