"When I arrived, a proud man was my father of me and my acquirements; and from that time forth, he had morning and evening service every day in his family—a thing he never had before, except on Sunday.
"And, oh! there was one that welcomed me back, with a smile and a tear, and a trembling of the tongue, and a heaving of her beautiful bosom, that was dearer, far dearer to me than father or friends, although I had a warm heart for them too. It was Jessy Miller, the only daughter of Rob Miller the carrier's widow, a tall fair-skinned lassie, with raven locks, and dark hazel eyes, and a face and figure with which none of the village girls could compare.
"'Ye are welcome home again, Saunders—heartily welcome; and you'll be glad to hear that the young leddies at the hall—the laird's sisters, ye ken—have been very kind to me and my mother baith, and that I go up there every day to work for them; and they have made me many a handsome present, as you see, Saunders, and many a good book have they sent me; and the young laird, Mr Adderfang, has come hame, ye will have heard,'—I started, for I had not heard it,—'and he is really very civil to us also.' We were speaking in a little bit green, at the western-most end of the village. There was a clump of horse chestnuts behind us, through which the breeze was rushing with a rustling sough, but it was neither strong enough nor loud enough to drown the buzzing, or rather moaning noise of the numberless bees that were gathering honey from its blossoms, for it was in June; or the rushing murmur of the clear sparkling burnie, that wimpled past at our feet, with a bit crazy wooden brig across it, beyond which a field of hay, ready for the scythe, was waving in the breeze, with the shadows of the shreds of summer clouds sailing along its green undulations, as they racked across the face of the sun.
"At the moment when the mention of the young laird's name by Jessy Miller, for he was known to be a wild graceless slip, had sent the blood back to my heart with a chill—a larger cloud than any that had gone before threw its black shadow over where we sat, while all around was blithe breeze and merry sunshine. It appeared to linger—I took Jessy's hand, and pointed upwards. I thought she shrank, and that her fingers were cold and clammy. She tried to smile, but it ended in a faint hysterical laugh, as she said,—'Saunders, man, ye're again at your vagaries, and omens, and nonsense; what for do ye look that gate at me, man?'
"'I canna help it, Jessy—no, for the soul of me, I cannot—why does the heaven frown on you and me only, when it smiles on all things beside?'
"'Hoot, it's but a summer cloud, and ye're a fule; and there—there it's gane, ye see—there, see if it hasna sailed away over the breezy hay field, beyond the dyke there—come and help me ower it, man—come,'—and once more I looked in her bright eyes undoubtingly, and as I lifted her over the grey stones, I pressed her to my heart, in the blessed belief and consciousness that she was my ain Jessy Miller still.
"All the summer I officiated as helper to the excellent Mr Bland, our parish minister—his nephew, who was appointed to fill the situation permanently, being still on the continent as tutor in a nobleman's family, nor did he return until the autumn.
"Although I never expected to have a kirk of my own, yet preaching was at this time a pleasure to me—for my intellect was strong and clear, health good, and spirits buoyant; my heart being at ease, and Jessy Miller loving and faithful.
"And was it not a proud thing for a parritch-fed laddie like me, to get the argument a' to mysell for a hail forenoon, and to lay down the law to all the gentry of the country, and maybe a lord among them; and to gie them their kail through the reek, and cry 'anathema maranatha' against the vices of the rich—the temptations whereto, if the truth maun be told, I never kenned; while nane o' them dared so much as open his mouth to reply to me?
"But I had ae redeeming virtue in their eyes, for, although whiles dogmatic, I was never so downright indiscreet as to inflict lang sermons on them—a thing great folk canna thole—a half-hour till the preachment, and a quarter till the prayer, being my maximum; never forgetting, that a good practical sermon should be like a jigot o' wee blackfaced Highland mutton, short in the shank, and pithy, and nutritious, which every body can digest something o', frae the fistling restless callant, wi' a clue in his breeks, till the auld staid elder, wha hears ye oot as steadily—teuch as ben-leather though you may be—as if his tail were Tam Clink's anvil. So, putting the shortness o' the screed against the bitterness o' the flyte, my popularity on the whole greatly increased.—Thus mollified by success, I grew sae bland and gentle in my disposition, that I could never even skelp ony o' my wee scholars without a tear in my eye; so that I verily believe if I could have shoved the dull creatures on by applying the tause to my ain—loof instead of theirs, I would have willingly done so.