“Jamie,” ejaculated Drumsheugh, and a flood of recollections--scenes, stories, incidents--swept across his face. Had he been a Kil-drummie man, he would have laughed at the things he heard and saw. “Sal,” wound up Hillocks, who had been tasting the same passed in silence, “he's an awfu' body, Jamie; ye'ill no get the marra (equal) of him in six pairishes.” Drumtochty did not ground its admiration of Jamie on his personal appearance, which lent itself to criticism and suggested a fine carelessness on the part of nature. His head was too large for his body, and rested on his chest. One shoulder had a twist forward which invested Jamie with an air of aggression. His legs were constructed on the principle that one knee said to the other, If you let me pass this time, I 'll let you pass next time. “Gin ye were juist tae luke at Jamie, ye micht ca' him a shachlin' (shambling) cratur,” Drumsheugh once remarked, leaving it to be inferred that the understanding mind could alone appreciate him, and that in this matter Drumtochty walked by faith and not by sight. His rate of progression was over four miles an hour, but this method was sideways, and was so wonderful, not to say impressive, that even a phlegmatic character like Drumsheugh's Saunders had been known to follow Jamie's back view till it disappeared, and then to say “michty,” with deliberation. Young animals that developed any marked individuality in gait were named after Jamie without offence, and were understood to have given pledges of intelligence, since it was believed that nature worked on the principle of compensation. “There's been an oversicht aboot Jamie's legs, but there's naethin' wrang wi' his tongue,” and it was the general judgment that it did not “shachle.” Jamie's gift of speech was much aided by eyes that were enough to redeem many defects in the under building. They were blue--not the soft azure of the South, but the steely colour of a Scottish loch in sunshine, with a north-east wind blowing--a keen, merciless, penetrating blue. It gave a shock to find them fastened on one when he did not know Jamie was paying any attention and they sobered him in an instant. Fallacies, cant, false sentiment, and every form of unreality shrivelled up before that gaze, and there were times one dared not emerge from the shelter of the multiplication table. He had a way of watching an eloquent stranger till the man's sentences fell to pieces and died away in murmurs before he said “Ay, ay,” that was very effective; and when he repeated this deliverance, after a pause of thirty seconds, even Whinnie understood that the kirkyard had been listening to nonsense.