there was a proverb in the Bible he often repeated to
himself in those days as he went about his grounds: 'The fathers have
eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.' The
miserable old man was up to the neck in debt to the Edinburgh lawyers;
but he was fast discovering that there are other and worse things that a
bad man entails on his eldest son than a burdened estate. There was no
American wheat or Australian wool to reduce the rents of Cardoness in
that day; but he had learnt, as he rode in to Edinburgh again and again
to raise yet another loan for pocket-money to his eldest son, that there
are far more fatal things to a small estate than the fluctuations and
depressions of the corn and cattle markets. Gordon's own so expensive
youth was now past, as he had hoped: but no, there it was, back upon him
again in a most unlooked-for and bitter shape. 'The fathers have eaten
sour grapes' was all he used to say as he rose to let in his drunken son
at midnight; he scarcely blamed him; he could only blame himself, as his
beloved boy reeled in and cursed his father, not knowing what he did.

The shrinking income of the small estate could ill afford to support two
idle and expensive families, but when young Cardoness broke it to his
mother that he wished to marry, she and her husband were only too glad to
hear it. To meet the outlay connected with the marriage, and to provide
an income for the new family, there was nothing for it but to raise the
rents of the farms and cottages that stood on the estate. Anxious as
Rutherford was to see young Cardoness settled in life, he could not stand
by in silence and see honest and hard-working people saddled with the
debts and expenses of the Castle; and he took repeated opportunities of
telling the Castle people his mind; till old Cardoness in a passion
chased him out of the house, and rode next Sabbath-day over to Kirkdale
and worshipped in the parish church of William Dalgleish. The insolent
young laird continued, at least during the time of his courtship, to go
to church with his mother, but Rutherford could not shut his eyes to the
fact that he studied all the time how he could best and most openly
insult his minister. He used to come to church late on the Sabbath
morning; and he never remained till the service was over, but would rise
and stride out in his spurs in the noisiest way and at the most unseemly
times. Rutherford's nest at Anwoth was not without i