He was shown up into a shabby room, with an iron bedstead, a chest of drawers daubed with sickly paint, a table with a stained red cover, a few bookshelves in a recess over the wash-stand, and two chairs seated with hair-cloth. On one of these, by the side of a small fire in a neglected grate, sat the schoolmaster reading his Plato. On the table beside him lay his Greek New Testament, and an old edition of George Herbert. He looked up as the door opened, and, notwithstanding his strange dress, recognising at once his friend and pupil, rose hastily, and welcomed him with hand and eyes and countenance, but without word spoken. For a few moments the two stood silent, holding each the other’s hand, and gazing each in the other’s eyes, then sat down, still speechless, one on each side of the fire. They looked at each other and smiled, and again a minute passed. Then the schoolmaster rose, rang the bell, and when it was answered by a rather careworn young woman, requested her to bring tea. “I’m sorry I cannot give you cakes or fresh butter, my lord,” he said with a smile, and they were the first words spoken. “The former is not to be had, and the latter is beyond my means. But what I have will content one who is able to count that abundance which many would count privation.” He spoke in the choice word, measured phrase, and stately speech which Wordsworth says “grave livers do in Scotland use,” but under it all rang a tone of humour, as if he knew the form of his utterance too important for the subject-matter of it, and would gently amuse with it both his visitor and himself. He was a man of middle height, but so thin that notwithstanding a slight stoop in the shoulders, he looked rather tall; much on the young side of fifty, but apparently a good way on the other, partly from the little hair he had being grey. He had sandy-coloured whiskers, and a shaven chin. Except his large sweetly closed mouth, and rather long upper lip, there was nothing very notable in his features. At ordinary moments, indeed, there was nothing in his appearance other than insignificant to the ordinary observer. His eyes were of a pale quiet blue, but when he smiled they sparkled and throbbed with light. He wore the same old black tail-coat he had worn last in his school at Portlossie, but the white neckcloth he had always been seen in there had given place to a black one: that was the sole change in the aspect of the man. About Portlossie he had been greatly respected, notwithstanding the rumour that he was a “stickit minister,” that is, one who had failed in the attempt to preach; and when the presbytery dismissed him on the charge of heresy, there had been many tears on the part of his pupils, and much childish defiance of his unenviable successor.