He had two other weaknesses, which a faithful biographer must chronicle.
A regiment on the march would draw him from the ploughtail itself, and “With daddy to see the soldiers” was held to excuse any of Mrs. Broom’s children from household duties.
The other shall be described in the graphic language of that acute observer the farm-bailiff.
“If there cam’ an Irish beggar, wi’ a stripy cloot roond him and a bellows under’s arm, and ca’d himself a Hielander, the lad wad gi’e him his silly head off his shoulders.”
As to the farm-bailiff, perhaps no one felt more or said less than he did on John Broom’s return. But the tones of his voice had tender associations for the boy’s ears as he took off his speckled hat, and after contemplating the inside for some moments, put it on again, and said,—
“Aweel, lad, sae ye’ve cam hame?”
But he listened with quivering face when John Broom told the story of McAlister, and when it was ended he rose and went out, and “took the pledge” against drink, and—kept it.
Moved by similar enthusiasm, the cowherd took the pledge also, and if he didn’t keep it, he certainly drank less, chiefly owing to the vigilant oversight of the farm-bailiff, who now exercised his natural severity almost exclusively in the denunciation of all liquors whatsoever, from the cowherd’s whisky to Thomasina’s elder-flower wine.
The plain cousin left his money to the little old ladies, and Lingborough continued to flourish.
Partly perhaps because of this, it is doubtful if John Broom was ever looked upon by the rustics as quite “like other folk.”