‘I thank you, Mr. Barclay,’ said Francis insolently, ‘but I am quite able to manage the brute myself. You seem to take me for a fool!’
‘’Deed, he’s no far aff ane ’at cud ca’ a bonny cratur like that a brute!’ returned David, nowise pleased to discover such hardness in one whom he would gladly treat like a child of his own. It was a great disappointment to him to see the lad getting farther away from the possibility of being helped by him. ‘What ’ud yer father say to see ye illuse ony helpless bein! Yer father was awfu guid til ’s horse-fowk.’
The last word was one of David’s own: he was a great lover of animals.
‘I’ll do with my own as I please!’ cried Francis, and spurred the pony to pass David. But one stalwart hand held the pony fast, while the other seized his rider by the ankle. The old man was now thoroughly angry with the graceless youth.
‘God bless my sowl!’ he cried, ‘hae ye the spurs on as weel? Stick ane o’ them intil him again, and I’ll cast ye frae the seddle. I’ the thick o’ a fecht, the lang blades playin aboot yer father’s heid like lichts i’ the north, he never stack spur intil ’s chairger needless!’
‘I don’t see,’ said Francis, who had begun to cool down a little, ‘how he could have enjoyed the fight much if he never forgot himself! I should forget everything in the delight of the battle!’
‘Yer father, laddie, never forgot onything but himsel. Forgettin himsel left him free to min’ a’thing forbye. Ye wud forget ilka thing but yer ain rage! Yer father was a great man as weel’s a great soger, Francie, and a deevil to fecht, as his men said. I hae mysel seen by the set mou ’at the teeth war clinched i’ the inside o’ ’t, whan a’ the time on the broo o’ ’im sat never a runkle. Gien ever there was a man ’at cud think o’ twa things at ance, your father cud think o’ three; and thae three war God, his enemy, and the beast aneath him. Francie, Francie, i’ the name o’ yer father I beg ye to regaird the richts o’ the neebour ye sit upo’. Gien ye dinna that, ye’ll come or lang to think little o’ yer human neebour as weel, carin only for what ye get oot o’ ’im!’
A voice inside Francis took part with the old man, and made him yet angrier. Also his pride was the worse annoyed that David Barclay, his tenant, should, in the hearing of two or three loafers gathered behind him, of whose presence the old man was unaware, not only rebuke him, but address him by his name, and the diminutive of it. So when David, in the appeal that burst from his enthusiastic remembrance of his officer in the battle-field, let the pony’s head go, Francis dug his spurs in his sides, and darted off like an arrow. The old man for a moment stared open-mouthed after him. The fools around laughed: he turned and walked away, his head sunk on his breast.
Francis had not ridden far before he was vexed with himself. He was not so much sorry, as annoyed that he had behaved in fashion undignified. The thought that his childish behaviour would justify Kirsty in her opinion of him, added its sting. He tried to console himself with the reflection that the sort of thing ought to be put an end to at once: how far, otherwise, might not the old fellow’s interference go! I am afraid he even said to himself that such was a consequence of familiarity with inferiors. Yet angry as he was at his fault-finding, he would have been proud of any approval from the lips of the old soldier. He rode his pony mercilessly for a mile or so, then pulled up, and began to talk pettingly to him, which I doubt if the little creature found consoling, for love only makes petting worth anything, and the love here was not much to the front.
About half-way home, he had to ford a small stream, or go round two miles by a bridge. There had been much rain in the night, and the stream was considerably swollen. As he approached the ford, he met a knife-grinder, who warned him not to attempt it: he had nearly lost his wheel in it, he said. But Francis always found it hard to accept advice. His mother had so often predicted from neglect of hers evils which never followed, that he had come to think counsel the one thing not to be heeded.