plenitude of genial good sense. He began by being somewhat suspicious
of us after the usual country fashion. When he at last understood the
sincerity and novelty of our intentions, he treated us with a kind of
fatherly derision, which had no hint of impoliteness or impertinence in
it. 'It will na do, I'm thinking,' he said, several times. When he
saw us persistent, and that our persistence grew in the ratio of his
dissuasion, he said, just as though he were talking to wayward
children, 'Well, a wilful man maun have his way. As for my bit of
cottages, ye're welcome to them, an' I'll ask no rent till ye've been
in them long enough to know your own minds better. They're of no worth
to me, an' I'll be your debtor for living in them. If ye want to pull
them aboot, ye'll do it at your own expense, I'm willing. Later on, if
ye care to stay, you and me'll fix a rent, an' I gie ye ma word it
shall na be more than ten pund a year. I'll help ye too if ye'll let
me. I can find ye a man as 'll do all the little jobs you want done,
an' glad to do it. As for fishing, the stream's yours, an' I would na
say but what ye might get some shooting too. But ye'll tire of it,
ye'll tire of it,' he concluded, with a grave smile.

With that he handed us the keys. He then shook our hands with the
melancholy air of a man who says farewell to friends embarked upon a
perilous adventure, and strode away across the heather, stopping once
to wave his hand to us as if in wise dissuasion.

So Mahomet might have stood above Damascus when he said, 'My Paradise
is not there,' and yet Damascus was a Paradise all the same.