eated. He had natural
powers capable of supporting him in the sphere to which his reputation
had raised him. He had wit, humour, pathos, and fluency; and, eager to
earn the opinion of his parishioners, he exerted himself to gain it,
and he succeeded. Throughout the whole of his parish, he was admired
as a man of genius and eloquence, he was respected as a man of
irreproachable moral worth, and beloved as a friend, who shared
sincerely in the gladness, and sympathised in the sorrows, of his
flock. Unfortunately, the habits of many of his parishioners, as well
as of those of the literary club to which I have alluded, were the
very reverse of temperate. For a time the attraction of his young
wife, and presently that of his infant son, kept him from indulging in
nocturnal potations. But afterwards these attractions lost their
force; the glory and the glee of the musical and literary conclave
overcame all his resolves; and, night after night, it happened that he
returned to his manse at unseasonable hours, and greeted his wife with
the leer of intoxication, instead of the steady glance of affection.
We should have said that, before this, old David Riddell, moved by his
son's entreaties, had given up his duties among the hills, and had
come to live with him at Mosskirk Manse. A weekly delight was it to
the old man to behold his son arrayed in his black gown, and with the
smooth white bands drooping decently upon his bosom, delivering from
the pulpit of his native parish the words of eternal truth; and
pleasant was it to the old shepherd ever and anon to recognise, in the
elegant but simple language of the pastor, some of those sentiments
which he himself had instilled into his mind, while he was yet a
shepherd lad upon the moorlands.

But it could not long be concealed from him that William was irregular
in his habits. When the fact first struck him, he almost swooned away;
for the forebodings of Rachel rushed into his mind, and he saw, as it
seemed, for the first time, that his son's destruction was sealed.

It was long, however, before he could bring himself to speak on the
subject to William; he felt the shame which his son appeared to have
abandoned; and his own temperate blood sent a blush into his withered
cheek at the idea of addressing the child of his heart, the minister
of God, on the subject of his intemperance. The miserable struggles of
the old man before he gave utterance to his sentiments to William, we
are u