It was a fine day, and when service was over the minister walked back to his manse at a very leisurely pace, enjoying the sunshine after a week of showery weather. The road he followed crossed the river, and as he approached the bridge he saw the same stranger leaning over the parapet, smoking a cigar, and gazing at the brown stream. Near him at the side of the road was drawn up a large dark-green touring car, which apparently the gentleman had driven himself, for there was no sign of a chauffeur. "Good day, sir!" said the stranger affably, as the minister came up to him. "Lovely weather!" Mr Burnett, nothing loath to hear a fresh voice, stopped and smiled and agreed that the day was fine. He saw now that the stranger was a middle-sized man with a full fair moustache, jovial eyes behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, and a rosy healthy colour; while his manner was friendliness itself. The minister felt pleasantly impressed with him at once. "Any trout in this stream?" inquired the stranger. Mr Burnett answered that it was famed as a fishing river, at which the stranger seemed vastly interested and pleased, and put several questions regarding the baskets that were caught. Then he grew a little more serious and said-- "I hope you will pardon me, sir, for thanking you for a very excellent sermon. As I happened to be motoring past just as church was going in I thought I'd look in too. But I assure you I had no suspicion I should hear so good a discourse. I appreciated it highly." Though a modest man, Mr Burnett granted the stranger's pardon very readily. Indeed, he became more favourably impressed with him than ever. "I am very pleased to hear you say so," he replied, "for in an out-of-the-way place like this one is apt to get very rusty." "I don't agree with you at all, sir," said the stranger energetically, "if you'll pardon my saying so. In my experience--which is pretty wide, I may add--the best thinking is done in out-of-the-way places. I don't say the showiest, mind you, but the _best_!" Again the minister pardoned him without difficulty. "Of course, one needs a change now and then, I admit," continued the stranger. "But, my dear sir, whatever you do, don't go and bury yourself in a crowd!" This struck Mr Burnett as a novel and very interesting way of putting the matter. He forgot all about the dinner awaiting him at the manse, and when the stranger offered him a very promising-looking cigar, he accepted it with pleasure, and leaned over the parapet beside him. There, with his eyes on the running water, he listened and talked for some time. The stranger began to talk about the various charming out-of-the-way places in Scotland. It seemed he was a perfervid admirer of everything Scottish, and had motored or tramped all over the country from Berwick to the Pentland Firth. In fact, he had even crossed the waters, for he presently burst forth into a eulogy of the Windy Islands.