hands, and bathing of his head, covered with thick dark hair, plentifully lined with grey, in a tub of cold water; from which his face, which was “cremsin dyed ingrayne” by the weather, emerged glowing.  He sat down at the table in his usual rough blue coat and plain brass buttons; with his breeches of broad-striped corduroy, his blue-ribbed stockings, and leather gaiters, or cuiticans, disposed under the table, and his shoes, with five rows of broad-headed nails in the soles, projecting from beneath it on the other side; for he was a tall man—­six feet still, although five-and-fifty, and considerably bent in the shoulders with hard work.  Sutherland’s style was that of a gentleman who must wear out his dress-coat.

Such was the group which, three or four evenings in the week, might be seen in David Elginbrod’s cottage, seated around the white deal table, with their books and slates upon it, and searching, by the light of a tallow candle, substituted as more convenient, for the ordinary lamp, after the mysteries of the universe.

The influences of reviving nature and of genial companionship operated very favourably upon Hugh’s spirits, and consequently upon his whole powers.  For some time he had, as I have already hinted, succeeded in interesting his boy-pupils in their studies; and now the progress they made began to be appreciable to themselves as well as to their tutor.  This of course made them more happy and more diligent.  There were no attempts now to work upon their parents for a holiday; no real or pretended head or tooth-aches, whose disability was urged against the greater torture of ill-conceded mental labour.  They began in fact to understand; and, in proportion to the beauty and value of the thing understood, to understand is to enjoy.  Therefore the laird and his lady could not help seeing that the boys were doing well, far better in fact than they had ever done before; and consequently began not only to prize Hugh’s services, but to think more highly of his office than had been their wont.  The laird would now and then invite him to join him in a tumbler of toddy after dinner, or in a ride round the farm after school hours.  But it must be confessed that these approaches to friendliness were rather irksome to Hugh; for whatever the laird might have been as a collegian, he was certainly now nothing more than a farmer.  Where David Elginbrod would have described many a “bonny sicht,” the laird only saw the probable results of harvest, in the shape of figures in his banking book.  On one occasion, Hugh roused his indignation by venturing to express his admiration of the delightful mingling of colours in a field where a good many scarlet poppies grew among the green blades of the corn, indicating, to the agricultural eye, the poverty of the soil where they were found.  This fault in the soil, the laird, like a child, resented upon the poppies themselves.

“Nasty, ugly weyds!  We’ll hae ye admirin’ the smut neist,” said he, contemptuously; “’cause the bairns can bleck ane anither’s faces wi’t.”