“Ye saw the young gentleman safe to the pier? He’s a bonnie lad, though maybe no as weel-mannered as ane would like to see,” said Mrs. Campbell. “Keep me! such a way to name his father—Bairns maun be awfu’ neglected in such a grand house—aye left wi’ servants, and never trained to trust their bits of secrets to father or mother. Laddies,” said the farmer’s wife, with a little solemnity, looking across the sleeping baby upon the four heads of different sizes which bent over their supper at the table before her, “mind you aye, that, right or wrong, them that’s maist interested in whatever befalls you is them that belongs to you—maist ready to praise if ye’ve done weel, and excuse you if ye’ve done wrang. I hope you were civil to the strange callant, Colin, my man?”
“Oh, ay,” said young Colin, not without a movement of conscience; but he did not think it necessary to enter into details.
“When a callant like that is pridefu’, and looks as if he thought himself better than other folk, I hope my laddies are no the ones to mind,” said the mistress of Ramore. “It shows he hasna had the advantages that might have been expected. It’s nae harm to you, but a great deal o’ harm to him. Ye dinna ken how weel off you are, you boys,” said the mother, making a little address to them as they sat over their supper; Little Johnnie, whose porridge was too hot for him, turned towards her the round, wondering black eyes, which beamed out like a pair of stray stars from his little freckled face, and through his wisps of flaxen hair, bleached white by rain and sun; but the three others went on very steadily with their supper, and did not disturb themselves; “there’s aye your father at hand ready to tell ye whatever you want to ken—no like yon poor callant, that would have to gang to a tutor, or a servant, or something worse; no that he’s an ill laddie; but I’m aye keen to see ye behave yoursels like gentlemen, and yon wasna ony great specimen, as it was very easy to see.”
After this there was a pause, for none of the boys were disposed to enter into that topic of conversation. After a little period of silence, during which the spoons made a diversion and filled up the vacancy, they began to find their tongues again.
“It’s awfu’ wet up on the hill,” said Archie, the second boy, “and they say the glass is aye falling, and the corn on the Barnton fields has been out this three weeks, and Dugald Macfarlane, he says it’s sprouting—and oh, mother!”
“What is it, Archie?”
“The new minister came by when I was down at the smiddy with the brown mare. You never saw such a red head. It is red enough to set the kirk on fire. They were saying at the smiddy that naebody would stand such a colour of hair—it’s waur than no preaching weel—and I said I thought that too,” said the enterprising Archie; “for I’m sure I never mind ony o’ the sermon, but I couldna forget such red hair.”
“And I saw him too,” said little Johnnie; “he clapped me on the head, and said how was my mammaw; and I said we never ca’ed onybody mammaw, but just mother; and then he clapped me again, and said I was a good boy. What for was I a good boy?” said Johnnie, who was of an inquiring and philosophical frame of mind, “because I said we didna say mammaw? or just because it was me?”
“Because he’s a kind man, and has a kind thought for even the little bairns,” said Mrs. Campbell, “and it wasna’ like a boy o’ mine to say an idle word against him. Do you think they know better at the smiddy, Archie, than here? Poor gentleman,” said the good woman, “to be a’ this time wearyin’ and waitin’, and his heart yearnin’ within him to get a kirk, and do his Master’s work; and then to ha’e a parcel of haverels set up and make a faction against him because he has a red head. It makes ane think shame o’ human nature and Scotch folk baith.”
“But he canna preach, mother,” said Colin, breaking silence almost for the first time; “the red head is only an excuse.”