"
The poor widow gulped down the affront to her husband's principles,
implied in this caution, and hastened to take Butler from the High
School, and encourage him in the pursuit of mathematics and divinity, the
only physics and ethics that chanced to be in fashion at the time.
Jeanie Deans was now compelled to part from the companion of her labour,
her study, and her pastime, and it was with more than childish feeling
that both children regarded the separation. But they were young, and hope
was high, and they separated like those who hope to meet again at a more
auspicious hour. While Reuben Butler was acquiring at the University of
St. Andrews the knowledge necessary for a clergyman, and macerating his
body with the privations which were necessary in seeking food for his
mind, his grand-dame became daily less able to struggle with her little
farm, and was at length obliged to throw it up to the new Laird of
Dumbiedikes. That great personage was no absolute Jew, and did not cheat
her in making the bargain more than was tolerable. He even gave her
permission to tenant the house in which she had lived with her husband,
as long as it should be "tenantable;" only he protested against paying
for a farthing of repairs, any benevolence which he possessed being of
the passive, but by no means of the active mood.
Pages:
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176