It was just because those three seemed to think it so awful, and to be inclined to make a fuss over it, that I did not like to hear what Angus said about Father. Grandmamma never thought anything about it; she always said drinking and gaming were gentlemanly vices, which the King himself—(I mean, of course, the Elector, but Grandmamma said the King)—need not be ashamed of practising.
I listened rather uneasily for Mr Keith’s answer. I am beginning to feel a good deal of respect for his opinion and himself, and I did not want to hear him say anything about Father that was not agreeable. But he put it quietly aside.
“If you please, Angus, we will let other people alone. Both you and I shall find our own sins quite enough to repent of, I expect. You have not answered my question, Angus.”
“What question?” grumbled Angus. I fancy he did not want to answer it.
“Would you, three months since, have let your father see and hear what you have let me do within even the last week?”
Angus growled something in the bottom of his throat which I could not make out.
Mr Keith’s tone changed suddenly.
“Angus, dear old fellow, are you happier now than you were then?”
“Duncan, I am the most miserable wretch that ever lived! I want no preaching to, I can tell you. That last text my father preached from keeps tolling in my ear like a funeral bell—and it is all the worse because it comes in his voice: ‘Remember from whence thou art fallen!’ Don’t I remember it? Do I want telling whence I have fallen? Haven’t I made a thousand resolves never, never to fail again, and the next time I get into company, all my resolves melt away and my hard knots come undone, and I feel as strong as a spoonful of water, and any of them can lead me that tries, like an animal with a ring through his nose?”
“Water is not a bad comparison, Angus, if you look at both sides of it. What is stronger than water, when the wind blows it with power? And you know who is compared to the wind. ‘Awake, O North Wind, and come, Thou South; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out.’ It is the wind of God’s Spirit that we want, to blow the water—powerless of itself—in the right direction. It will carry all before it then.”