h his very soul steeped in shame, and his cheeks
covered with confusion, he stepped from the kirk door. A humming noise
issued through the crowd, and every one turned their faces towards him.
His misery was greater than he could bear. "Yon was oratory for ye!"
said one. "Poor deevil!" added another, "I'm sorry for him; but it was
as guid as a play." "Was it tragedy or comedy?" inquired a third,
laughing as he spoke. The remarks fell upon his ear--he grated his teeth
in madness, but he could endure no more; and, covering his face with his
hands, he bounded off like a wounded deer to his mother's cottage. In
despair he entered the house, scarce knowing what he did. He beheld her
where she had fallen upon the bed, dead to all but misery. "Oh mother,
mother!" he cried, "dinna ye be angry--dinna ye add to the afflictions
of your son! Will ye no, mother?--will ye no?" A low groan was the only
answer. He hurried to and fro across the room, wringing his hands.
"Mother," he again exclaimed, "will ye no speak ae word? Oh, woman! ye
wadna be angry if ye kenned what an awfu' thing it is to see a thousan'
een below ye, and aboon ye, and round about ye, a' staring upon ye like
condemning judges, an' looking into your very soul--ye hae nae idea o'
it, mother; I tell ye, ye hae nae idea o't, or ye wadna be angry. The
very pulpit floor gaed down wi' me, the kirk wa's gaed round about, and
I thought the very crown o' my head wad pitch on the top o' the
precentor. The very een o' the multitude soomed round me like
fishes!--an' oh, woman! are ye dumb? will ye torment me mair? can ye no
speak, mother?" But he spoke to one who never spoke again. Her reason
departed, and her speech failed, but grief remained. She had lived upon
one hope, and that hope was destroyed. Her round ruddy cheeks and portly
form wasted away, and within a few weeks the neighbours, who performed
the last office of humanity, declared that a thinner corpse was never
wrapt in a winding sheet than Mrs. Jeffrey. Time soothed, but did not
heal the sorrows, the shame, and the disappointment of the son. He sank
into a village teacher, and often, in the midst of his little school, he
would quote his first, his only text--imagine the children to be his
congregation--attempt to proceed--gaze wildly round for a moment, and
sit down and weep. Through these aberrations his school dwindled into
nothingness, and poverty increased his delirium. Once, in the midst of
the remaining few, he