Page:The Dial (Volume 73).djvu/336

278 crows" whose "wretched peevishness" should debar them from all honest conversation.

Every one of his writings and utterances has the same disconcerting turn or twist to them, so that at the last the bewildered readers of his works are completely "metagrabolized" and can tell no better than one of his own "Chitterlings" whether the worthy knight is to be taken seriously or not.

How was it that Sir Thomas Urquhart managed to reach so happy a state of detachment in a world which other mortals are wont to take with such ponderous gravity?

Was it, one wonders, from observing the eccentric wisdom of his great-uncle, John Urquhart of Craigfintray, who was so renowned "for his deep reach of natural wit and dexterity in acquiring possessions with all men's applause" or from listening, perhaps to the shrewd words of some Cullicudden midwife who had taken stock of her life's occupation with a "blinkard mind" and come to her own dour conclusions?

Sir Thomas was born in 1611. His home was the old embattled Castle of Cromartie whose dark time-stained turrets rose no less than one hundred and sixty feet above the village. It was in his library there that this Scottish Montaigne on his return from his travels occupied himself with such matter "as the reasons for the variety of colours, and the squaring of a circle."

He himself gives us some vivid glimpses of his life during those far off days.

While his friends would go tramping over the frozen marshes, he of a winter's afternoon would remain closeted in the castle losing himself in those curious investigations which with a scholar's partiality he declares to be "worth more than six hundred thousand moor-fowl."

How well we can see his fanciful laced figure in that great tapestried room, sitting goose-quill in hand, close up against the generous fireplace "within the chimney of which two threshers could ply their flails!"

How well we can see him, Cotgrave's dictionary shut at last, stepping across to the tall diamond-paned window to peer with quizzical interest at the familiar constellations whose dim starlight (before ever Cor Caroli had appeared in the heavens) shone down upon the grey stone tiles of the castle roof, and upon the silent cobble