unced drunkenness on two grounds:
first, because it was an offence against religion, and second, because
it was a sign of weakness."

Some old folk could remember the Doctor's father, who never attained to
the Doctorate, but was a commanding personage. He published no
sermons, but as the first Davidson in Drumtochty, he laid the
foundations of good government. The Kilspindie family had only
recently come into the parish--having purchased the larger part of the
Carnegies' land--and Drumtochty took a thrawn fit, and among other acts
of war pulled down time after time certain new fences. The minister
was appealed to by his lordship, and having settled the rights of the
matter, he bade the factor wait in patience till the Sacrament, and
Drumsheugh's father used to tell unto the day of his death, as a
historical event, how the Doctor's father stood at the communion-table
and debarred from the Sacrament evil livers of all kinds, and that day
in especial all who had broken Lord Kilspindie's fences,--which was an
end of the war. There was a picture of him in the Doctor's study,
showing a very determined gentleman, who brought up both his parish and
his family upon the stick, and with undeniable success.

With such blood in his veins it was not to be expected that our Doctor
should be after the fashion of a modern minister. No one had ever seen
him (or wished to see him) in any other dress than black cloth, and a
broad-brimmed silk hat, with a white stock of many folds and a bunch of
seals depending from some mysterious pocket. His walk, so assured, so
measured, so stately, was a means of grace to the parish, confirming
every sound and loyal belief, and was crowned, so to say, by his stick,
which had a gold head, and having made history in the days of his
father, had reached the position of a hereditary sceptre. No one could
estimate the aid and comfort that stick gave to the Doctor's visits,
but one quite understood the force of the comparison Hillocks once
drew, after the Doctor's death, between the coming to his house of the
Doctor and a "cry" from his energetic successor under the new _regime_.

"He 's a hard-workin' body, oor new man, aye rin rinnin', fuss fussin'
roond the pairish, an' he 's a pop'lar hand in the pulpit, but it's a
puir business a veesit frae him.

"It's juist in an' oot like a cadger buyin' eggs, nae peace an' nae
solemnity. Of coorse it's no his blame that he 's naethin' tae look
at, for that