"I couldn't, laddie. Your Uncle Alan, now—"
"I'll do the talking, then; but will you come?"
"Och, wee fellow, it would be foolish."
"You wouldn't have me think hard of a man of Raghery?"
"No, I wouldn't have any one think hard of the folk of Raghery, so I suppose I'll have to come. I don't know what your Uncle Robin will say to me for putting notions in your head. It's awful foolish. But I'll come."
§ 10
"So there'd never be the making of a scholar in me, Uncle Robin. A ship on the sea or a new strange person would be always more to me nor a book. I can read and write and figure; what more do I want? And, och, sir, the school would be a prison to me, the scholars droning and ink on their fingers, and the hard-faced masters at the desk. I'd be woe for the outside, for the sunshine and the water and the bellying winds—"
His Uncle Robin tapped the window-pane of the club and thought hard. The Rathlin sailor stood by, puzzled.
"But, childeen asthore, sure you don't know now what you want. Your career, laddie! Think a bit! The church, for instance—"
"Och, Uncle Robin, is it me in the church that must say my prayers by my lee lone, so loath am I to let the people see what's in me? I'd be the queer minister, dumb as a fish—"