There was something quite uncanny about the silence of the place.  The monotonous ripple of the burn below seemed to intensify it.  I stood in hesitation for a moment or two before venturing to knock at the door.  When at last I had done so, shuffling footsteps sounded within, and Archie opened the door; the same bland smile which I had noticed when I first saw him appeared on his wrinkled face, and the faded blue eyes lighted up.

“Come ben, sir; come ben!” he said hospitably.  “Ye’re kindly welcome, tho’ ‘tis but a puir hoosachie for ane o’ the gentry.”

It was indeed a sorry place to live in.  The roof was so unsound that, as I learned later from Bell, it was difficult to find a dry spot for his wretched bed in wet weather.  Added to this, as the same informant assured me, the place was a happy hunting-ground for rats.

“The rats is that bould, sir,” she said, “that he’s fairly to tak’ a stick to bed wi’ him o’ nichts, to keep the beasts off.  It’s a wonder they rats hasna’ yokit on him afore this!”

But on this, my first visit, no rat put in an appearance.

I gave no motive for looking in, nor did Archie seem to be surprised at my call.  He was evidently much pleased to see me; but I could not help thinking at the time that his cordial welcome was due in great measure to my relationship to Val.

That first visit was short, but it was succeeded by others.  It soon became quite customary to wind up my daily walk with a chat with the “hermit”—­as I got into the way of calling him.  For beyond the mystery attaching to the man—­or perhaps I ought to say intensifying it—­was the fact that he was a really attractive personality.  He could talk about the various countries he had seen with a degree of intelligence unlooked for in one of his condition; moreover, he could season his remarks with much spice of sound, earnest wisdom, which amused while it edified me.  It did not take long to discover that Archie “Gairdener” was a man out of the common.

That Archie was a good Christian was self-evident.  No weather, however tempestuous, could keep him from Sunday Mass, and I noticed with some surprise that he received Holy Communion at least once and sometimes more frequently every week, but always on a week-day, when our congregation consisted chiefly of our household and Bell.

“I suppose Archie ‘Gairdener’ finds it more convenient to come to the Sacraments on a week-day,” I remarked one day to Val, “because of the late hour of Mass on Sunday.”

“Scarcely that,” was his quiet answer.  “I happen to know from other sources that he still keeps up the old practice he found in use when he first came here.  In those days no one dreamed of breaking fast on a Sunday until the priest himself did.  Every one came to Mass fasting, as Archie still does—­though I believe he is the only one nowadays.”

During the two or three years that followed I saw a good deal of Archie.  We became such cronies, indeed, that Val was considerably amused that I should take so much pleasure in the company of one with whom I could have few ideas in common.  But there was something that attracted me to the old fellow from the first, which I can not define in words.