idiot, are ye ettlin tae follow Drums afore yir time?" And the medical
attendant of Drumtochty continued his invective till Hillocks started,
and still pursued his retreating figure with medical directions of a
simple and practical character.

[Illustration: "THE GUDEWIFE IS KEEPIN' UP A DING-DONG"]

"A'm watchin', an' peety ye if ye pit aff time. Keep yir bed the
mornin', and dinna show yir face in the fields till a' see ye. A'll gie
ye a cry on Monday--sic an auld fule--but there's no are o' them tae
mind anither in the hale pairish."

Hillocks' wife informed the kirkyaird that the doctor "gied the gudeman
an awfu' clear-in'," and that Hillocks "wes keepin' the hoose," which
meant that the patient had tea breakfast, and at that time was wandering
about the farm buildings in an easy undress with his head in a plaid.

It was impossible for a doctor to earn even the most modest competence
from a people of such scandalous health, and so MacLure had annexed
neighbouring parishes. His house--little more than a cottage--stood on
the roadside among the pines towards the head of our Glen, and from this
base of operations he dominated the wild glen that broke the wall of the
Grampians above Drumtochty--where the snow drifts were twelve feet deep
in winter, and the only way of passage at times was the channel of the
river--and the moorland district westwards till he came to the Dunleith
sphere of influence, where there were four doctors and a hydropathic.
Drumtochty in its length, which was eight miles, and its breadth, which
was four, lay in his hand; besides a glen behind, unknown to the world,
which in the night time he visited at the risk of life, for the way
thereto was across the big moor with its peat holes and treacherous