Memorials of John Geddes

Che "CMraturs" of m Pari$h.
this Httle birkie fae Bodylair." Whether there was any
solid pudding or proper payment accompanying the puff of
praise, remains untold ; but it is probable that any little
experience got in this way helped young Geddes at a later
time, when he had to address himself to the business of
book-keeping more effectually during the short episode
in his after-life of setting up as a bookseller and
" merchant " in Huntly. Old " Hillocks " was a man
entirely sensible of the honour he thus bestowed on the
juvenile, for he stood high in his own scale of estimation.
Himself a Duff, he could, it was believed, count kin more
or less remotely with the Duffs of the then Earldom, and
this naturally heightened his altitude in the district. The
farm which he occupied was reached from Church and
School only through a long stretch of moorland, and there
were divers tales of moving accidents amid moors and
mosses, under snowstorms, in which " Hillocks " more than
once came near to lose his life. On one occasion, the story
ran that along with a shepherd he had been caught in a
howling tornado of sleet and drift, obliterating the land-
marks, and the two had lost their way. After plunging
helplessly about, " Hillocks " sat down wearily on a stone
and gave way to a kind of despair, as if he was never more
to see his bairns or his fireside, and he exclaimed to the
shepherd, "Wow, Jamie, ye'll be a sair miss'd man, I wyte,
31