m slipped off in the enthusiasm of this reminiscence, and
he expressed the feeling of Drumtochty. No one sent for MacLure save in
great straits, and the sight of him put courage in sinking hearts. But
this was not by the grace of his appearance, or the advantage of a good
bedside manner. A tall, gaunt, loosely made man, without an ounce of
superfluous flesh on his body, his face burned a dark brick color by
constant exposure to the weather, red hair and beard turning grey,
honest blue eyes that look you ever in the face, huge hands with wrist
bones like the shank of a ham, and a voice that hurled his salutations
across two fields, he suggested the moor rather than the drawing-room.
But what a clever hand it was in an operation, as delicate as a woman's,
and what a kindly voice it was in the humble room where the shepherd's
wife was weeping by her man's bedside. He was "ill pitten the gither" to
begin with, but many of his physical defects were the penalties of his
work, and endeared him to the Glen. That ugly scar that cut into his
right eyebrow and gave him such a sinister expression, was got one night
Jess slipped on the ice and laid him insensible eight miles from home.
His limp marked the big snowstorm in the fifties, when his horse missed
the road in Glen Urtach, and they rolled together in a drift. MacLure
escaped with a broken leg and the fracture of three ribs, but he never
walked like other men again. He could not swing himself into the saddle
without making two attempts and holding Jess's mane. Neither can you
"warstle" through the peat bogs and snow drifts for forty winters
without a touch of rheumatism. But they were honorable scars, and for
such risks of life men get the Victoria Cross in other fields.

[Illustration: "FOR SUCH RISKS OF LIFE MEN GET THE VICTORIA CROSS IN
OTHER FIELDS"]

MacLure got nothing but the secret affection of the Glen, which knew
that none had ever done one-tenth as much for it as this ungainly,
twisted, battered figure, and I have seen a Drumtochty face
soften at the sight of MacLure limping to his horse.

Mr. Hopps earned the ill-will of the Glen for ever by criticising
the doctor's dress, but indeed it would have filled any townsman with
amazement. Black he wore once a year, on Sacrament Sunday, and, if
possible, at a funeral; topcoat or waterproof never. His jacket and
waistcoat were rough homespun of Glen Urtach wool, which threw off the
wet like a duck's back, and below he