Page:Martha Spreull by Zachary Fleming.pdf/64

52

E may talk aboot Oreeginal Sin an' Moral Evil till ye argy the thing awa', but it's nae use, for a' yer reasons an' yer fine sophistries winna shake my belief i' the guid auld doctrine. My neebor, Mrs. Naismith, used to say that ony wumman wha had brocht up seeven o' a faimily, as she had dune, had nae need o' ony further proof o' human depravity; an' weel-a-wat she didna require to wait on sic a great haunfu', for if she had just offered a bursary, consistin' o' bed, board, an' washin', to puir laddie students for four years, like me, an' gotten a bursar like Willie Warstle, she wud hae been able to settle the matter to her ain satisfaction in a hantle less time.

Ye will understand better what I mean when I tell ye what happened to mysel', an' put me in a bonny rage forby gi'ein' me a fricht that I didna get the better o' for twa 'r three days.

Ae nicht efter the gloamin' I wis comin' hame, gey an' soople, doon ane o' thae by-streets no far frae Charing Cross. I had been layin' in something tasty for the breakfast i' the mornin'. Willie Warstle wis thrang at Cæsar's Commentaries on the Gallic and Civil Wars when I left, an' I wis wunnerin' what effect sic stirrin' an' heroic events wud hae on his openin' mind, when—a' o' a sudden—I wis grippit by the cauf o' the leg, an' held to the spot as if I had been tethered to a stake. I got a mortal fricht, no' to speak o' the narrow escape I had had o' fa'in' flet on my face on the plane-stanes.