"I TO THE
HILLS!" she would repeat. "And O, Erchie, are nae these like the hills
of Naphtali?" and her tears would flow.
Upon an impressionable child the effect of this continual and pretty
accompaniment to life was deep. The woman's quietism and piety passed
on to his different nature undiminished; but whereas in her it was a
native sentiment, in him it was only an implanted dogma. Nature and the
child's pugnacity at times revolted. A cad from the Potterrow once
struck him in the mouth; he struck back, the pair fought it out in the
back stable lane towards the Meadows, and Archie returned with a
considerable decline in the number of his front teeth, and
unregenerately boasting of the losses of the foe. It was a sore day for
Mrs. Weir; she wept and prayed over the infant backslider until my lord
was due from Court, and she must resume that air of tremulous composure
with which she always greeted him. The judge was that day in an
observant mood, and remarked upon the absent teeth.
"I am afraid Erchie will have been fechting with some of they blagyard
lads," said Mrs.
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