"You've come at the most lucky moment. We are talking about your own subject, old Scots songs and ballads. Mr. Stevenson is quite an authority."
As the old man shook hands with the young one, "I do like," he said, "to hear of a young man caring for old things."
"And I," said Elizabeth, "do like an old man who cares for young things. I must tell you. Last Sunday I found a small, very grubby boy waiting at the hall door long before it was time for the Sabbath school. I asked him what he was doing, and he said, 'Waitin' for the class to gang in.' Then he said proudly, 'A'm yin o' John Jamieson's bairns.'" She turned to Mr. Stevenson and explained: "Mr. Jamieson has an enormous class of small children and is adored by each of them."
"It must take some looking after," said Mr. Stevenson. "How d'you make them behave?"
Mr. Jamieson laughed and confessed that sometimes they were beyond him.
"The only thing I do insist on is a clean face, but sometimes I'm beat even there. I sent a boy home twice last Sabbath to wash his face, and each time he came back worse. I was just going to send him again, when his neighbour interfered with, 'Uch here! he wash't his face, but he wipit it wi' his bunnet, and he bides in a coal ree.'"
Elizabeth turned to see if her father appreciated the tale, but Mr. Seton had got the little old ballad book and was standing in his favourite attitude with one foot on a chair, lost to everything but the words he was reading.
"Now," he said, "this is an example of what I mean by Scots practicalness. It's 'Annan Water'—you know it, Jamieson? The last verse is this:
'O wae betide thee, Annan Water,
I vow thou art a drumly river;
But over thee I'll build a brig,
That thou true love no more may sever.'
You see? The last thought is not the tragedy of love and death, but of the necessity of preventing it happen again. He will build a brig."