A Break in my Story
I am now rapidly approaching the moment at which I said I should bring
this history to an end--the moment, namely, when I became aware that
my boyhood was behind me.
I left home this summer for the first time, and followed my brother
Tom to the grammar school in the county-town, in order afterwards to
follow him to the University. There was so much of novelty and
expectation in the change, that I did not feel the separation from my
father and the rest of my family much at first. That came afterwards.
For the time, the pleasure of a long ride on the top of the
mail-coach, with a bright sun and a pleasant breeze, the various
incidents connected with changing horses and starting afresh, and then
the outlook for the first peep of the sea, occupied my attention too
thoroughly.
I do not care to dwell on my experience at the grammar school. I
worked fairly, and got on; but whether I should gain a scholarship
remained doubtful enough. Before the time for the examination arrived,
I went to spend a week at home. It was a great disappointment to me
that I had to return again without seeing Elsie. But it could not be
helped. The only Sunday I had there was a stormy day, late in October,
and Elsie had a bad cold, as Turkey informed me, and could not be out;
while my father had made so many engagements for me, that, with one
thing and another, I was not able to go and see her.
Turkey was now doing a man’s work on the farm, and stood as high as
ever in the estimation of my father and everyone who knew him. He was
as great a favourite with Allister and Davie as with myself, and took
very much the same place with the former as he had taken with me. I
had lost nothing of my regard for him, and he talked to me with the
same familiarity as before, urging me to diligence and thoroughness in
my studies, pressing upon me that no one had ever done lasting work,
“that is,” Turkey would say--“work that goes to the making of the
world,” without being in earnest as to the _what_ and conscientious as
to the _how_.
“I don’t want you to try to be a great man,” he said once. “You might
succeed, and then find out you had failed altogether.”
“How could that be, Turkey?” I objected. “A body can’t succeed and
fail both at once.”
“A body might succeed,” he replied, “in doing what he wanted to do,
and then find out that it was not in the least what he had thought
it.”
“What rule are you to follow, then, Turkey?” I asked.
“Just the rule of duty,” he replied. “What you ought to do, that you
must do. Then when a choice comes, not involving duty, you know,
choose what you like best.”
This is the substance of what he said. If anyone thinks it pedantic, I
can only say, he would not have thought so if he had heard it as it
was uttered--in the homely forms and sounds of the Scottish tongue.
“Aren’t you fit for something better than farm-work yourself, Turkey?”
I ventured to suggest, foolishly impelled, I suppose, to try whether I
could not give advice too.
“It’s _my_ work,” said Turkey, in a decisive tone, which left me no
room for rejoinder.
This conversation took place in the barn, where Turkey happened to be
thrashing alone that morning. In turning the sheaf, or in laying a
fresh one, there was always a moment’s pause in the din, and then only
we talked, so that our conversation was a good deal broken. I had
buried myself in the straw, as in days of old, to keep myself warm,
and there I lay and looked at Turkey while he thrashed, and thought
with myself that his face had grown much more solemn than it used to
be. But when he smiled, which was seldom, all the old merry sweetness
dawned again. This was the last long talk I ever had with him. The
next day I returned for the examination, was happy enough to gain a
small scholarship, and entered on my first winter at college.
My father wrote to me once a week or so, and occasionally I had a
letter with more ink than matter in it from one of my younger
brothers. Tom was now in Edinburgh, in a lawyer’s office. I had no
correspondence with Turkey. Mr. Wilson wrote to me sometimes, and
along with good advice would occasionally send me some verses, but he
told me little or nothing of what was going on.