430 ANNIE MACK AY. CHAP. xxiv. 



I 



desire to earn his livelihood by his own exertions, 

 and the unremitting diligence with which he attended 

 to matters of business, without allowing scientific 

 pursuits to interfere with his daily and respectable 

 calling, have long since attracted my cordial admiration. 

 He was always at hand when wanted ; and, like 

 Johnson's estimable friend Lovatt, 



" ' No summons mocked by chill delay 

 No petty gains disdained by pride ; 

 The modest wants of every day 

 The toil of every day supplied.' " 



It was fortunate for Dick's memory that he left no 

 debts unpaid. Everything that he owed was paid in 

 full ; though little was left for his faithful friend Annie 

 Mackay. 



When I went to Thurso, I expected to obtain a good 

 deal of information from her about her old master. 

 But she could give me very little. She could not speak 

 for tears. " He was my good and kind maister ! " that 

 was nearly all that she could tell me. But she showed 

 me Dick's house and the bakehouse behind, now 

 divided into separate tenements. 



Little more need be said about Eobert Dick. The 

 " unco guid " said hard things of him. They drew a 

 religious moral from the painfulness of his death. Poor 

 self-satisfied creatures ! One of Dick's sayings might 

 apply to them. " Some men," he said, " make an image 

 of God after their own hearts, and not after the image of 

 their Maker." 



Yet all who knew Dick intimately spoke of him as a 



