"
"I 'm not sure you can show that logically," said Mr Graham. "I will
think it over, however--not that I mean to take up any defence
of myself. But now I have letters to write, and must ask you to
leave me. Come and see me again tomorrow."
Malcolm went from him--
like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn.
Here was trouble upon trouble! But what had befallen him compared
with what had come upon the schoolmaster! A man like him to be so
treated! How gladly he would work for him all the rest of his days!
And how welcome his grandfather would make him to his cottage! Lord
Lossie would be the last to object. But he knew it was a baseless
castle while he built it, for Mr Graham would assuredly provide
for himself, if it were by breaking stones on the road and saying
the Lord's Prayer. It all fell to pieces just as he lifted his hand
to Miss Horn's knocker.
She received him with a cordiality such as even she had never shown
him before. He told her what threatened Mr Graham. She heard him
to the end without remark, beyond the interjection of an occasional
"Eh, sirs!" then sat for a minute in troubled silence.
"There's a heap o' things an 'uman like me," she said at length,
"canna un'erstan'. I didna ken whether some fowk mair nor preten'
to un'erstan' them. But set Sandy Graham doon upo' ae side, an' the
presbytery doon upo' the ither, an' I hae wit eneuch to ken whilk
I wad tak my eternal chance wi'. Some o' the presbytery's guid
eneuch men, but haena ower muckle gumption; an' some o' them has
plenty o' gumption, but haena ower muckle grace, ta jeedge by the
w'y 'at they glower an' rair, layin' doon the law as gien the Almichty
had been driven to tak coonsel wi' them.
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