But you know there's
not much at the last that can be done--"
"No. We all pass, and they that bide can but make the dirge. But I'll
be obliged if you'll say to Mr. Alexander that if there _is_ aught--"
He gathered up the reins. "It will be snowing presently. I always
thought that I'd like to part on a day like this, gray and quiet, with
all the color and the shouting lifted elsewhere." He was gone,
trotting before them on his big horse.
Strickland and the minister looked after him. "There's one to be liked
no little!" said Strickland.
But Mr. M'Nab's answering tone was wintry yet. "He makes mair songs
than he listens to sermons! Jarvis Barrow, that's a strong witness,
should have had another sort of great-nephew! And so he that will be
laird comes home to-morrow? It's little that he has been at home of
late years."
"Yes, little."
The manse with the kirk beyond rose before them, drawn against the
pallid sky. "A wanderer to and fro in the earth, and I doubt
not--though we do not hear much of it--an eater of husks!--Will you
not come in, Mr. Strickland?"
"Another time, Mr. M'Nab. I've an errand in the village.--Touching
Alexander Jardine. I suppose that the whole sense-bound world might be
called by a world farther on an eater of husks. But I know naught to
justify any especial application of the phrase to him.
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