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.

He is a bit of a pagan, old McQuhatty, in spite of Calvin and the Shorter Catechism.

I should not wonder if he were the original of the story of the minister who prayed for the "puir Deil." He planted a rowan tree by his porch when he was first inducted into the manse, and it has grown up with him and he loves it as if it were a human being.

He has had many bonny arguments with it, he says, on points of doctrine, and it has brought comfort to him in times of doubt by shivering its delicate leaves and whispering, "Dinna fash yoursel, McQuhatty.

The Lord God is a sensible body." He declares that the words are articulate, and I suspect that in the depths of his heart he believes that there are tongues in trees and books in the running brooks, just as he is convinced that there is good in everything.
He is a ripe and whimsical scholar, and his talk, even in infirm old age, is marked by a Doric virility which has rendered his companionship for these five days as stimulating as the moorland air.