He took a low stool, and, seating himself by her knee, laid his head in her lap.
He had a little book in his hand, a Latin classic, Virgil to wit; but though his forefinger retained his place, he was not looking at it now. He was gazing at the fire. He gazed thus for some time, while his mother smoothed his brow with her soft hands.
“Is my laddie tired?”
“I dinna know, mother. Sometimes I’m happy and hopeful that I’ll take a bursary,[2] at other times I’m dull and wae and think I won’t.”
“Weel, laddie, you maun keep up your heart and pray.”
“Oh, yes, of course, mother, but I must work as well as pray. I think you’d better do the principal part of the praying, and I’ll do the work. The Lord is more likely to listen to you, mother, than to sinful me.”
“Whisht! Sandie; whisht! laddie. But pray I do, mornin’, noon, and nicht. Ay, and my boy is clever, too. I’ll hear him preachin’ yet in one of the best pulpits in a’ broad Scotland. And oh! Sandie, that will be a happy, happy day to me.”
The thoughts of it caused the tears to flow to the good lady’s eyes, and a lump to rise in her throat that for the time being effectually arrested speech.
“Well, mother, you see it’s like this. Work as I may, I come upon bits o’ hitches here and there that I can’t get over. I have nobody to help me, and can’t afford a tutor. Again, you see I have nobody else to compare my knowledge with. In the parish of Drumlade here, our minister is too old; I wouldn’t think of worrying him, and I don’t know Mackenzie of Belhaven, though they do say he is very clever, and was in his day a first bursar at King’s College in Auld Aberdeen.”