'What are you going to be, Mr. Ericson?'
'I wish you could tell me, Robert. What would you have me to be? Come now.'
Robert thought for a moment.
'Weel, ye canna be a minister, Mr. Ericson, 'cause ye dinna believe in God, ye ken,' he said simply.
'Don't say that, Robert,' Ericson returned, in a tone of pain with which no displeasure was mingled. 'But you are right. At best I only hope in God; I don't believe in him.'
'I'm thinkin' there canna be muckle differ atween houp an' faith,' said Robert. 'Mony a ane 'at says they believe in God has unco little houp o' onything frae 's han', I'm thinkin'.'
My reader may have observed a little change for the better in Robert's speech. Dr. Anderson had urged upon him the necessity of being able at least to speak English; and he had been trying to modify the antique Saxon dialect they used at Rothieden with the newer and more refined English. But even when I knew him, he would upon occasion, especially when the subject was religion or music, fall back into the broadest Scotch. It was as if his heart could not issue freely by any other gate than that of his grandmother tongue.
Fearful of having his last remark contradicted—for he had an instinctive desire that it should lie undisturbed where he had cast it in the field of Ericson's mind, he hurried to another question.
'What for shouldna ye be a doctor?'
'Now you'll think me a fool, Robert, if I tell you why.'