“I dinna like excuses,” said his mother, “and I never kent before that you were a judge o’ preaching. You may come to ken better about it yoursel before a’ ’s done. I canna but think there’s something wrang when the like o’ that can be,” said Mrs. Campbell; “he’s studied, and he’s learned Latin and Greek, and found out a’ the ill that can be said about Scripture, and a’ the lies that ever have been invented against the truth; and he’s been brought up to be a minister a’ his days, and knows what’s expected. But as soon as word gangs about that the Earl has promised him our kirk, there’s opposition raised. No’ that onybody kens ony ill of him; but there’s the smith, and the wright, and Thomas Scott o’ Lintwearie, maun lay their heads thegether—and first they say he canna preach, and then that he’ll no’ visit, and at least, if a’thing else fails, that he has a red head. If it was a new doctor that was coming, wha would be heeding about the colour o’ his hair? but it’s the minister that’s to stand by our deathbeds, and baptize our bairns, and guide us in the right way: and we’re no to let him come in peace, or sit down in comfort. If we canna keep him from getting the kirk, we can make him miserable when he does get it. Eh, bairns; I think shame! and I’m no’ so sure as I am in maist things,” said the farmer’s wife, looking up with a consciousness of her husband’s presence, “that the maister himsel—”
“Weel, I’m aye for popular rights,” said Colin of Ramore. He had just come in, and had been standing behind taking off his big coat, on which the rain glistened, and listening to all that his wife said. “But if Colin was a man and a minister,” said the farmer with a gleam of humour, as he drew his chair towards the fire, “and had to fight his way to a kirk like a’ the young men now-a-days, I wouldna say I would like it. They might object to his big mouth; and you’ve ower muckle a mouth yoursel’, Jeanie,” continued big Colin, looking admiringly at the comely mother of his boys. “I might tell them wha he took it from, and that if he had as grand a flow of language as his mother, there would be nae fear o’ him. As for the red head, the Earl himsel’s a grand example, and if red hair’s right in an earl it canna be immoral in a minister; but Jeanie, though you’re an awfu’ revolutionary, ye maunna meddle with the kirk, nor take away popular rights.”
“I’m no gaun to be led into an argument,” said the mistress, with a slightly vexed expression; “but I’m far from sure about the kirk. After you’ve opposed the minister’s coming in, and held committees upon him, and offered objections, and done your best to worry the life out o’ him, and make him disgusted baith at himsel’ and you, do you think after that ye can attend to him when you’re weel, and send for him when you’re sick, wi’ the right feelings? But I’m no gaun to speak ony mair about the minister. Is the corn in yet, Colin, from the East Park? Eh, bless me! and it was cut before this wean was born?”
“We’ll have but a poor harvest after a’,” said the farmer; “it’s a disappointment, but it canna be helpit. It’s strange how something aye comes in, to keep a man down when he thinks he’s to have a bit margin; but we must jog on, Jeanie, my woman. As long as we have bread to eat, let us be thankful. And as for Colin, it needna make ony difference. Glasgow’s no so far off, but he can still get his parritch out of the family meal; and as long as he’s careful and diligent we’ll try and fend for him. It’s hard work getting bread out of our hillside,” said big Colin; “but ye may have a different life from your father’s, lad, if you take heed to the opportunities in your hands.”
“A’ the opportunities in the world,” said Colin the younger, in a burst, “wouldna give me a chance like yon English fellow. Everything comes ready to him. It’s no fair. I’ll have to make up wi’ him first, and then beat him—and so I would,” said the boy, with a glow on his face, and a happy unconsciousness of contradicting himself, “if I had the chance.”
“Well,” said big Colin, “that’s just ane o’ the things we have to count upon in our way of living. It’s little credit to a man to be strong,” said the farmer, stretching his great arms with a natural consciousness of power, “unless he has that to do that tries it. It’s harder work to me, you may be sure, to get a pickle corn off the hillside, than for the English farmers down in yon callant’s country to draw wheat and fatness out o’ their furrows. But I think mysel’ nane the worse a man,” continued Colin of Ramore, with a smile; “Sir Thomas, as the laddie ca’s him, gangs wading over the heather a’ day after the grouse and the paitricks; he thinks he’s playing, himsel’, but he’s as hard at work as I am. We’re a’ bluid relations, though the family likeness whiles lies deep and is hard to find. A man maun be fighting wi’ something. If it’s no the dour earth that refuses him bread, it’s the wet bog and the heather that comes atween him and his sport, as he ca’s it. Never you mind wha’s before you on the road. Make up to him, Colin. Many a day he’ll stray out o’ the path gathering straws to divert himsel’, when you’ve naething to do but to push on.”
“Eh, but I wouldna like a laddie o’ mine to think,” interrupted his mother, eagerly, “that there’s nae guid but getting on in the world. I’ll not have my bairns learn ony such lesson; laddies,” said the farmer’s wife, in all the solemnity of her innocence, “mind you this aboon a’. You might be princes the morn, and no as good men as your father. There’s nae Sir Thomases, nor Earls, nor Lord Chancellors I ever heard tell o’, that was mair thought upon nor wi’ better reason——”
At this moment Jess entered from the kitchen, to suggest that it was bedtime.
“And lang enough for the mistress to be sitting up, and she so delicate,” said the sole servant of the house. “If ye had been in your ain room wi’ a fire and a book to read, it would have been wiser-like, than among a’ thae noisy laddies, wi’ the wean and a seam as if ye were as strong as me. Maister, I wish you would speak to Colin; he’s awfu’ masterfu’; instead of gaun to his bed, like a civilized lad, yonder he is awa’ ben to the kitchen and down by the fire to read his book, till his hair’s like a singed sheep’s-head, and his cheeks like burning peats. Ane canna do a hand’s-turn wi’ a parcel o’ callants about the place day and nicht,” said Jess, in an aggrieved tone.
“And just when Archie Candlish has suppered his horses and come in for half an hour’s crack,” said the master. “I’ll send Colin to his bed; but dinna have ower muckle to say to Archie, he’s a rover,” continued the good-tempered farmer, who “made allowances” for a little love-making. He raised himself out of his arm-chair with a little hesitation, like a great mastiff uncoiling itself out of a position of comfort, and went slowly away as he spoke, moving off through the dimly-lighted room like an amiable giant as he was.