“And my wark has to wait on a sick bairn. I’m not liking it. And I have no doubt she is wasting my time with Cluny McPherson—no doubt at all.”
“Weel! That circumstance isna likely to be far out o’ the way.”
“It is very far out of my way. I can tell you that, Mother.”
“Weel, lad, there’s no way always straight. It’s right and left, and up and down, wi’ every way o’ life.”
“That is so, Mother, but my work is waiting, and it puts me out of the right way, entirely!”
“Tut! tut! What are you complaining aboot? The lassie has been at your beck and call the best pairt o’ her life. And it’s vera seldom she can please you. If she gave you the whites o’ her e’en, you would still hae a grumble. It’s Saturday afternoon. What’s your will sae late i’ the week’s wark?”
“Ought I not to be at my studies, late and early?”
“That stands to reason.”
“Well then, I want Christine’s help, and I am going to call her.”
“You hae had her help ever sin’ you learned your A B C’s. She’s twa years younger than you are, but she’s twa years ahead o’ you in the ordinary essentials. Do you think I didna tak’ notice that when she was hearing your tasks, she learned them the while you were stumbling all the way through 13 them. Dod! The lassie knew things if she only looked in the face o’ them twice o’er, and it took you mair than an hour to get up to her—what you ca’ history, and ge-o-graph-y she learned as if they were just a bairn’s bit rhyming, and she was as quick wi’ the slate and figures as you were slow. Are you forgetting things like these?”