wholesome reproof rather than lift my fist, I broke through this rule in a couple of hurries, and gave him such a yerk in the cheek with the loof of my hand, as made, I am sure, his lugs ring, and sent him dozing to the door like a peerie.
“Ye see that,” said I, as the laddie went ben the house whingeing; “ye see what a kettle of fish ye have made o’t?”
“Weel, weel,” answered Nanse, a wee startled by my strong, decisive way of managing, “ye ken best, and, I fancy, maun tak’ the matter your ain way. But ye can have no earthly objection to making him a lawer’s advocatt?”
“I wad see him hanged first,” answered I. “What! do you imagine I would set a son of mine to be a sherry-offisher, ganging about rampauging through the country, taking up fiefs and robbers, and suspicious characters with wauf looks and waur claes; exposed to all manner of evil communication from bad company, in the way of business; and rouping out puir creatures that cannot find wherewithal to pay their lawful debts, at the Cross, by warrant of the Sherry, with an auld chair in ae hand and an eevery hammer in the ither? Siccan a sight wad be the death o’ me.”
“What think ye then of the preaching line?” asked Nanse.
“The preaching line!” quo’ I—“No, no, that’ll never do. Not that I want respect for ministers, who are the servants of the Most High; but the truth is, that unless ye have great friends and patronage of the like of the Duke down by, or the Marquis of Lothian up by, or suchlike, ye may preach yoursell as hoarse as a corbie, from June to January, before ony body will say, ‘Hae, puir man, there’s a kirk.’ And if no kirk casts up—which is more nor likely—what can a young probationer turn his hand to? He has learned no trade, so he can neither work nor want. He daurna dig nor delve, even though he were able, or he would be hauled by the cuff of the neck before his betters in the General Assembly, for having the impudence to go for to be so bold as dishonour the cloth; and though he may get his bit orra half-a-guinea whiles, for holding forth in some bit country kirk, to a wheen shepherds and their dogs, when the minister himself, staring with the fat of good living and little work, is lying ill of a bile fever, or has the gout in his
muckle toe, yet he has aye the miseries of uncertainty to encounter; his coat grows bare in the cuffs, greasy in the neck, and brown between the shouthers; his jawbones get long and lank, his een sunk, and his head grey wi’ vexation, and what the wise Solomon calls ‘hope deferred;’ so at long and last, friendless and penniless, he takes the incurable complaint of a broken heart, and is buried out of the gate, in some bit strange corner of the kirkyard.”
“Stop, stop, gudeman,” cried Nanse, half greeting, “that’s an awfu’ business; but I daresay it’s owre true. But mightna we breed him a doctor? It seems they have unco profits; and, as he’s sae clever, he might come to be a graduit.”
“Doctor!” answered I—“Keh, keh, let that flee stick i’ the wa’; it’s a’ ye ken about it. If ye was only aware of what doctors had to do and see, between dwining weans and crying wives, ye would have thought twice before ye let that out. How do ye think our callant has a heart within him to look at folk blooding like sheep, or to sew up cutted throats with a silver needle and silk thread, as I would stitch a pair of trowsers; or to trepan out pieces of cloured skulls, filling up the hole with an iron plate; and pull teeth, maybe the only ones left, out of auld women’s heads, and so on, to say nothing of rampauging with dark lanterns and double-tweel dreadnoughts, about gousty kirkyards, among humlock and long nettles, the haill night over, like spunkie—shoving the dead corpses, winding-sheets and all, into corn-sacks, and boiling their bones, after they have dissected all the red flesh off them, into a big caudron, to get out the marrow to make drogs of?”
“Eh, stop, stop, Mansie!” cried Nanse holding up her hands.