But the others all had the look of elders, and carried with them the full respect and affection of the congregation.

Even the young men under the gallery regarded them with reverence for their godly character, but for other things as well; for these old men had been famous in their day, and tales were still told about the firesides of the people of their prowess in the woods and on the river.
There was, for instance, Finlay McEwen, or McKeowen, as they all pronounced it in that country, who, for a wager, had carried a four-hundred-pound barrel upon each hip across the long bridge over the Scotch River.

And next him sat Donald Ross, whose very face, with its halo of white hair, bore benediction with it wherever he went.

What a man he must have been in his day! Six feet four inches he stood in his stocking soles, and with "a back like a barn door," as his son Danny, or "Curly," now in the shanty with Macdonald Bhain, used to say, in affectionate pride.

Then there was Farquhar McNaughton, big, kindly, and good-natured, a mighty man with the ax in his time.