"I thought you loved me, uncle."
"I love no human creature better than you. Whatna for should I not love you? You are the only thing left to me o' the bonnie brave brother who wrapped his colors round him in the Afghan Pass, the brave-hearted lad who died fighting twenty to one. And you are whiles sae like him that I'm tempted—na, na, that is a' byganes. I will not let you hae the #2,000, that is the business in hand."
"What for?"
"If you will hear the truth, that second glass o' whiskey is reason plenty. I hae taken my ane glass every night for forty years, and I hae ne'er made the ane twa, except New Year's tide."
"That is fair nonsense, Uncle John. There are plenty of men whom you trust for more than #2,000 who can take four glasses for their nightcap always."
"That may be; I'm no denying it; but what is lawfu' in some men is sinfu' in others."
"I do not see that at all."
"Do you mind last summer, when we were up in Argyleshire, how your cousin, Roy Callendar, walked, with ne'er the wink o' an eyelash, on a mantel-shelf hanging over a three-hundred-feet precipice? Roy had the trained eyesight and the steady nerve which made it lawfu' for him; for you or me it had been suicide—naething less sinfu'. Three or four glasses o' whiskey are safer for some men than twa for you. I hae been feeling it my duty to tell you this for some time. Never look sae glum, Davie, or I'll be thinking it is my siller and no mysel' you were caring for the night when ye thought o' my cloak and umbrella."
The young man rose in a perfect blaze of passion.
"Sit down, sit down," said his uncle. "One would think you were your grandfather, Evan Callendar, and that some English red-coat had trod on your tartan. Hout! What's the use o' a temper like that to folk wha hae taken to the spindle instead o' the claymore?"