I resolved on flight. But
whither?
Verily the high gods must hold me in peculiar favour. The first
letter I opened was from old Simon McQuhatty, my present host, a
godfather of my mother, who alone of mortals befriended us in the
dark days of long ago. He was old and infirm, he wrote, and
Gossip Death was waiting for him on the moor; but before he went
to join him he would like to see Susan's boy again. I could come
whenever I liked. A telegram from Euston before I started would
be sufficient notice. I sent Stenson out with a telegram to say
I was starting that very day by the two o'clock train, and I
wrote a polite letter to my Aunt Jessica informing her of my
regret at not being able to accept her kind invitation as I was
summoned to Scotland for an indefinite period.
My old friend's ministry in the Free Kirk of Scotland is drawing
to a close; he has lived in this manse, a stone's throw from his
grave, for fifty years, and the approaching change of habitat
will cost him nothing. He will still lie at the foot of his
beloved hills, and the purple moorland will spread around him for
all eternity, and the smell of the gorse and heather will fill
his nostrils as he sleeps.
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