I. “Let us remember that there is a moral law in the universe.”
II. “Let us be thankful there is a way of escape from it”
And then Domsie would chuckle with a keen sense of irony at the theology underneath. “For the summer Sacrament,” he would add after a pause, “we had a discourse on sin wi' twa heads, 'Original Sin' and 'Actual Transgressions'; and after Maister Deuchar finished wi' the first, he aye snuffed, and said with great cheerfulness: 'Now let us proceed to actual transgressions.'”
Although Domsie's tales had never in them the body of the Doctor's, yet he told them with such a pawkie humour, that Drumsheugh was fain between the two to cry for mercy, being often reduced to the humiliation of open laughter, of which he was afterwards much ashamed.
On that day, however, when Domsie made his lamentable announcement, it was evident to his friends that he was cast down, and ill at ease. He only glanced at a Horace which the Doctor had been fool enough to buy in Edinburgh, and had treasured up for Domsie's delectation at the close of the school year—the kind of book he loved to handle, linger over, return to gaze at, for all the world like a Catholic with a relic.
“Printed, do you see, by Henry Stephen, of Paris; there's his trademark, a philosopher gathering twigs from the tree of knowledge—and bound by Boyet—old French morocco. There is a coat of arms—I take it of a peer of France;” and the Doctor, a born book-collector, showed all its points, as Drumsheugh would have expatiated on a three-year-old bullock.
Domsie could not quite resist the contagious enthusiasm; putting on his spectacles to test the printing; running his hand over the gold tooling as one strokes a horse's glossy skin, and tasting afresh one or two favourite verses from a Horace printed and bound by the master craftsmen of their day. But it was only a brief rally, and Domsie sank again into silence, from which neither kindly jest nor shrewd country talk could draw him, till at last the Doctor asked him a straight question, which was going far for us, who thought it the worst of manners to pry into one's secrets: “What ails you, Dominie? Are any of your laddies going back on you?” and the Doctor covered the inquiry by reminding Drumsheugh that his glass was low.
“Na, na; they are fechting hard wi' body and mind, an' daein' their verra best, accordin' tae their pairts. Some o' the Drumtochty scholars lived and some dee'd in the war at the University, but there wasna ane disgraced his pairish.”
“They have made it known in every University of Scotland,” broke in the Doctor, “and also their master's name.”
“Ye've aye made ower mickle o' my wark, but a'm grateful this nicht an' content to tak' a' ye say in yir goodness, for a've sent oot ma last scholar,” and Domsie's voice broke.