Page:Martha Spreull by Zachary Fleming.pdf/27

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AM real muckle fashed wi' my head, especially when I get a waff o' cauld; and since I wrote last I have had a wonnerfu' sair brash, which accounts, in pairt, for my backwardness in beginning this chapter. I have already tell'd ye hoo my interest in the higher forms o' edication began by the opening o' my flett o' rooms, efter the Disruption time, to such collegeners as wanted a cheap diet and a respectable hame. Weel ye may be alloot to suppose when the Professor bodies rowed their goons aboot them, and shifted westward to their fine new College on Gilmorehill, that it would be a sair stoun to me, inasmuch as I couldna tak' up my apartments in George Street and march efter them; but, aboot the self-same time Providence, and a second cousin on my faither's side, wha had some property in the Trongate, ordered it otherwise.

The thing wis an unco surprise to me. My faither and the Trongate Spreulls never 'greet on releegious maitters; their last and sairest quarrel wis on the doctrine o' the "Ceevil Magistrate" and the "Pooer o' the Keys." Frae that hour the door o' friendliness atween the twa families remained lockit until death opened it. Jen Spreull, the last o' them, deet without a will, and just as I wis enjoying a quate greet ower