“‘That’s just my idea, mother,’ sais I.
“‘Then you won’t do no such nonsense, will you, Sammy?’
“‘Oh no!’ sais I, ‘I’ll just go through the form now and then to please father, but that’s all. Who the plague wants Gaelic? If all the Highlands of Scotland were put into a heap, and then multiplied by three, they wouldn’t be half as big as the White Mountains, would they, marm? They are just nothin’ on the map, and high hills, like high folks, are plaguy apt to have barren heads.’
“‘Sam,’ said she, a pattin’ of me on the cheek, ‘you have twice as much sense as your father has after all. You take after me.’
“I was so simple, I didn’t know what to do. So I said yes to mother and yes to father; for I knew I must honour and obey my parents, so I thought I would please both. I made up my mind I wouldn’t get books to learn Gaelic or teach English, but do it by talking, and that I wouldn’t mind father seein’ me, but I’d keep a bright look out for the old lady.”
“Oh dear! how innocent that was, warn’t it?” said they.
“Well, it was,” said I; “I didn’t know no better then, and I don’t now; and what’s more, I think I would do the same agin, if it was to do over once more.”
“I have no doubt you would,” said Janet.
“Well, I took every opportunity when mother was not by to learn words. I would touch her hand and say, ‘What is that?’ And she would say, ‘Làuch,’ and her arm, her head, and her cheek, and she would tell me the names; and her eyes, her nose, and her chin, and so on; and then I would touch her lips, and say, ‘What’s them?’ And she’d say. ‘Bhileau?’ And then I’d kiss her, and say, ‘What’s that?’ And she’d say. ‘Pog.’ But she was so artless, and so was I; we didn’t know that’s not usual unless people are courtin; for we hadn’t seen anything of the world then.
“Well, I used to go over that lesson every time I got a chance, and soon got it all by heart but that word Pog (kiss), which I never could remember. She said I was very stupid, and I must say it over and over again till I recollected it. Well, it was astonishing how quick she picked up English, and what progress I made in Gaelic; and if it hadn’t been for mother, who hated the language like pyson, I do believe I should soon have mastered it so as to speak it as well as you do. But she took every opportunity she could to keep us apart, and whenever I went into the room where Flora was spinning, or ironing, she would either follow and take a chair, and sit me out, or send me away of an errand, or tell me to go and talk to father, who was all alone in the parlour, and seemed kinder dull. I never saw a person take such a dislike to the language as she did; and she didn’t seem to like poor Flora either, for no other reason as I could see under the light of the livin’ sun, but because she spoke it; for it was impossible not to love her—she was so beautiful, so artless, and so interesting, and so innocent. But so it was.