door like a peerie.

"Ye see that," said I, as the laddie went ben the house whingeing; "ye
see what a kettle of fish ye have made o't?"

"Weel, weel," answered Nanse, a wee startled by my strong, decisive way
of managing, "ye ken best, and, I fancy, maun tak' the matter your ain
way. But ye can have no earthly objection to making him a lawyer's
advocatt?"

"I wad see him hanged first," answered I. "What! do you imagine I would
set a son of mine to be a sherry-offisher, ganging about rampauging
through the country, taking up fiefs and robbers, and suspicious
characters, with wauf looks and waur claes; exposed to all manner of evil
communication from bad company, in the way of business; and rouping out
puir creatures that cannot find wherewithal to pay their lawful debts, at
the Cross, by warrant of the Sherry, with an auld chair in ae hand and a
eevery hammer in the ither? Siccan a sight wad be the death o' me."

"What think ye then of the preaching line?" asked Nanse.

"The preaching line!" quo' I--"No, no, that'll never do. Not that I want
respect for ministers, who are the servants of the Most High; but the
truth is, that unless ye have great friends and patronage of the like of
the Duke down by, or Marquis of Lothian up by, or suchlike, ye may preach
yoursell as hoarse as a corbie, from June to January, before onybody will
say, 'Hae, puir man, there's a kirk.' And if no kirk casts up--which is
more nor likely--what can a young probationer turn his hand to? He had
learned no trade, so he can neither work nor want. He daurna dig nor
delve, even, though he were able, or he would be hauled by the cuff of
the neck before his betters in the General Assembly, for having the
impudence to go for to be so bold as dishonour the cloth; and though he
may get his bit orra half-a-guinea whiles, for holding forth in some bit
country kirk, to a wheen shepherds and their dogs, when the minister
himself, staring with the fat of good living and little work, is lying
ill of a bile fever, or has the gout in his muckle toe, yet he has aye
the miseries of uncertainty to encounter; his coat grows bare in the
cuffs, greasy in the neck, and brown between the shouthers; his jawbones
get long and lank, his een sunk, and his head grey wi' vexation, and what
the wise Solomon calls 'hope deferred'; so at long and last, friendless
and penniless, he takes the incurable complaint of a broken heart, and is
buried out of the gate, in some b