CHAPTER, I]
RUNS ALONGSIDE THE MAKING OF A MINISTER

N the east coast of Scotland, hidden, as if in
a quarry, at the foot of cliffs that may one
day fall forward, is a village called Harvie. So
has it shrunk since the day when I skulked from
it that I hear of a traveller’s asking lately at one
of its doors how far he was from a village; yet
Harvie throve once and was celebrated even in
distant Thrums for its fish. Most of our weav-
ers would have thought it as unnatural not to
buy harvies in the square on the Muckle Friday,
as to let Saturday night pass without laying in a
sufficient stock of halfpennies to go round the
family twice.

Gavin was born in Harvie, but left it at such
an early age that he could only recall thatched
houses with nets drying on the roofs, and a sandy
shore in which coarse grass grew. In the picture
he could not pick out the house of his birth,
though he might have been able to go to it had
he ever returned to the village. Soon he learned
that his mother did not care to speak of Harvie,
and perhaps he thought that she had forgotten it,
too, all save one scene to which his memory still
guided him. When his mind wandered to Har-
vie, Gavin saw the door of his home open and a
fisherman enter, who scratched his head and then

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