“The dew’s awfu’ late on the high eastern hills this mornin’, Mr Tod,” said Erchie. “Losh, ye’re as gash as the Laird o’ Garscadden! I’m feart ye’re studyin’ far ower hard; it’s no’ for the young and growin’ to be hurtin’ their heids wi’ nicht-schools and day-schools; ye should whiles tak’ a bit rest to yersel’. And no’ a bit o’ yer breakfast touched! Mrs MacPherson’ll no’ be the pleased woman wi’ ye this day, I can tell ye!”
Tod looked up with a lack-lustre eye. “Thought, Mr MacPherson, thought!” said he. “Hard, incessant, brain-corroding thought! In the words of the Bard of Avon, ‘He who increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.’”
“I aye thocht that was ‘Ecclesiastes,’ Mr Tod,” said Erchie, meekly.
“In a way, yes,” hastily admitted Tod. “It was ‘Ecclesiastes,’ as you say; but Shakespeare had pretty much the same idea. You will find it in—in—in his plays.”
That afternoon began the more serious of Jinnet’s experiences of’ divinity students. Nine young gentlemen with thick walking-sticks visited Tod’s apartment en masse; the strains of “Mush Mush, tu-ral-i-ady,” bellowed inharmoniously by ten voices, and accompanied by the beating of the walking-sticks on the floor, kept a crowd of children round the close-mouth for hours, and somewhat impeded the ordinary traffic of the street.
“There must be a spree on in auld Mac-Pherson’s,” said the tenement. When Erchie came home he found Jinnet distracted. “Oh, whit a day I’ve had wi’ them students!” she wailed.
“But look at the money ye’re makin’ aff your room,” said her husband. “Wi’ whit ye get frae Tod, ye’ll soon hae enough for the motor, cairrage and a yacht forbye.”
“I’m feart to tell ye, Erchie,” said Jinnet, “but I havena seen the colour o’ his money yet.”
“Study! study!” said Erchie. “Ye canna expect the puir lad to be thinkin’ even-on aboot his lessons, and learnin’ Latin and the rest o’t, no’ to mention ‘Mush Mush,’ and still keep mind o’ your twa or three paltry bawbees.”
“I mentioned it to him on Setturday and he was rale annoyed. He yoked on me and said I was jist as bad as the weedow he lodged wi’ afore; that he was shair I was gaun to let the tear doon-fa’. He gied me warnin’ that if I let the tear doon-fa’ he wad leave.”