It was a Lover and His Lass

by Mrs. Oliphant

"And well might I say it," cried Janet, "and guid reason I would have after a' that's come and gone. It's just that, sir. The man that does the best work, him that leaves naething but what is in her share to his wife, and lays up something for his bairns, and pays his debt of every kind baith to them that are obliged to him, and them that he's obliged to, and can haud up his head before ony man on earth, and no feared even for his Maker but in the way of reverence and his duty. Weel! that's an honest man at heart, if he's no a gentleman, and a better thing than a gentleman, if it was my last word. But, losh me! if I stand havering here," cried Janet, abandoning her peroration and her excitement together, "you'll get no dinner, sir, the day."

"What do you ca' that thing the auld heathens fired as they fled, sir?" said Adam, as Janet disappeared. "A Parthian arrow? Yon's just it. It's naething to the argument, but it has its effect. It doesna convince your mind, but it makes a kind of end of your debating. It's just a curious question enough what makes a gentleman. I canna tell ye, for my part. I'm maybe mair worth in many ways than a lad like you, not meaning any offence. I've come through mair, I have pondered mair—but pit me in your claes and you in mine, and it would be you that would be the gentleman still. I canna faddom it: but that's no remarkable, for there are few things I can faddom on this earth. The mair I ponder, the less I come to ony end."

"All the philosophers are the same," said Lewis. "You are not singular, my friend Adam. But how do you know I am a gentleman, come? I might be nothing of the sort. You never saw me till ten days ago. It is not the clothes, you admit, and you feel that you are a better man than I. Then, why do you take it for granted that I am a gentleman? You have no evidence."

"Maister Murray," said Adam, somewhat grimly, "evidence has little, awfu' little to do with it. Maybe you're one of them that thinks with Locke there are nae innate ideas? But I'm of the Scotch school, sir; I'm no demanding daata daata for ever, like your Baconian lads. Let us be, and we'll come down to your facks, and fit them a' in to a miracle. It's just a brutal method, in my opinion, to demand the facks first, and syne account for them and explain them a' away."

"You are abandoning the point more than your wife did," cried Lewis. "Come! how do you know?"

"I know naething about it," said Adam, turning away. "I'll argue my ain gait or I'll no argue at all. Your personal questions are naething to a true philosopher. This I'll tell ye, if a man canna be kent for a gentleman without proving it, it's my opinion he's nae gentleman ava. And I'm for a turn before the night closes in," said Adam suddenly.

Lewis was left in the lurch, standing alone by the open door. He went in after a little pause. He was pleased by what Adam said, though he had not been at all distressed before by the doubts which he had set forth before himself as to his own right to this title. He had laughed at his own argument then, and he laughed now, but nevertheless he was pleased. It was flattering, though it was so gruffly said.

Next morning rose still fair and bright, though Adam declared it would be the last day of the fine weather. Lewis was delighted to think of his two engagements. He did not care for his own exclusive society. He set out for Stormont when the sun was high, at an hour which all the experience of his previous life proved to him to be an impossible one to walk in, and found it only bright and genial with all the breadth and hush of noon, but without any of its oppressive qualities. He went across the river in the big ferry-boat, along with a farmer's shandry-dan. He recollected to have crossed a river so near Paestum in the wildest wastes of Italy, with brigands about, and dangers. The contrast was so strange that he laughed in spite of himself.

"It's perhaps not very well-bred," said the farmer's wife, who sat in state in her vehicle, holding her horse warily in hand though he was used to it, "but no doubt it's very funny to see me up here."

"Not funny at all, madam," said Lewis, taking off his hat; "but it reminded me of a ferry abroad, where we were afraid of the brigands, and every man you met carried a gun."