“That’s right!” And Miss Letty took him again in her arms and kissed him—“God bless you, dear! Try and grow up a good man! You will have a great many troubles and difficulties, I daresay—we all have; but go on trying—try always to be a good brave man!”
Boy returned her embrace with fervour, and promised. After this they went home, and the end of the week saw Boy back again in the remote fishing village with his mother only. His father had gone away on a yachting trip with a friend as fond of the bottle as himself, and some unkind people said what a good thing it would be if the yacht should go down quietly in the waves and make a speedy end of the two convivialists. Boy was personally rather glad of his father’s absence, as he thought it gave him a better chance to discuss things with his mother. For the first one or two days after his return he was very reticent,—he did not say much about his holiday in Scotland—but only mentioned his little friend Alister McDonald.
“Who is he?” demanded Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir.
“Oh, he’s just Alister McDonald,” answered Boy.
“Don’t be stupid, Boy. I mean who is his father?”
“Does that matter?”
“Matter! Of course it matters. Family is everything. You must belong to a good family for you to be anybody.”
“Must you? Then how about Robert Burns?”
“Robert Burns?” Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir’s mouth opened in astonishment.
“Yes,” went on Boy dauntlessly,—“I heard all about him in Scotland. They’re always talking about him. Robert Burns was a ploughman—and he wrote such beautiful things that everybody, even now, though he is dead ever so long ago, wants to try and make out that they’re connected with him in some way or other. Is that what you mean by a good family?”