take a seat home in the carriage--but the Elder
always prefers walking thither with his son, and he is stout and hale,
although upwards of threescore and ten years.

Walter, the second son, is now a captain in the navy, having served for
years before the mast. His mind is in his profession, and he is
perpetually complaining of being unemployed--a ship--a ship, is still
the burden of his song. But when at home--which he often is for weeks
together--he attaches himself to all the ongoings of rural life, as
devotedly as if a plougher of the soil instead of the sea. His mother
wonders, with tears in her eyes, why, having a competency, he should
still wish to provoke the dangers of the deep; and beseeches him
sometimes to become a farmer in his native vale. And perhaps more
improbable things have happened; for the captain, it is said, has fallen
desperately in love with the daughter of the clergyman of a neighbouring
parish, and the doctor will not give his consent to the marriage, unless
he promise to live, if allowed, on shore. The political state of Europe
certainly seems at present favourable to the consummation of the wishes
of all parties.

Of David, the third son, who has not heard, that has heard anything of
the pulpit eloquence of Scotland?--Should his life be spared, there can
be no doubt that he will one day or other be Moderator of the General
Assembly, perhaps Professor of Divinity in a College. Be that as it may,
a better Christian never expounded the truths of the gospel, although
some folks pretend to say that he is not evangelical. He is, however,
beloved by the poor--the orphan and the widow; and his ministrations,
powerful in the kirk to a devoutly listening congregation, are so too at
the sick-bed, when only two or three are gathered around it, and when
the dying man feels how a fellow-creature can, by scriptural aids,
strengthen his trust in the mercy of his Maker.

Every year, on the birthday of each of their sons, the old people hold a
festival--in May, in August, and at Christmas. The sailor alone looks
disconsolate as a bachelor, but that reproach will be wiped away before
autumn; and should God grant the cottagers a few more years, some new
faces will yet smile upon the holidays; and there is in their unwithered
hearts warm love enough for all that may join the party. We too--yes,
gentle reader--we too shall be there--as we have often been during the
last ten years--and you yourself will judge, fr