“No such thing,” said Lauderdale, hotly. “I’m fool enough, no doubt, but no such a fool as that. Callants of your age canna keep a medium. When you have a sore finger you take thoughts of dying; but I’m a man of some experience in this world. I’m travelling for my own pleasure and no for you, nor no man. As for this lad, I’ve seen the like before. He’s no singular, though I’ve little doubt he thinks he is. It’s awfu’ hard work to stop short just when you’ve come to the brow of the hill, and see a’ the fair prospect before you,” said Colin’s guardian, whose countenance was overcast and cloudy. “When the mind’s no very strong, the like of that sets it off its balance. I’ve seen them that came out of the trial as calm as the angels of God,” he went on, after a little pause, with a strain in his voice which showed unusual emotion; “and I have seen them that battled with Him that made them, to make Him render a reason; and I have seen them that took it with a high hand, and turned into preachers like this one. ‘A Voice from the Grave,’ did she say? But you’re a’ babies that ken no better. How are the like of you to know that there’s men like me--ay, and women more than men--that would give a’ their living, and would not grudge life itself, no for a voice only, but for two or three words--for one word and no more.” He put down his face in his hands for a moment as he spoke, though not to conceal tears; for Lauderdale’s sorrows, whatever they might have been, were wrapped in the deadly stillness of that past grief with which no stranger intermeddles; and his young companion watched him sorrowfully, sympathetically, but in ignorance, and with the timidity of youth, not knowing what to say. “Him, and the like of him,” said Lauderdale, going on more softly when he found that Colin made no reply, “their voice from the grave is like a Halloween ghost to frighten the unwary. Whisht, callant! I’m no laughing at the poor dying lad. There’s nae laughing in my head one way or another; but it’s so little you know. You never think, with your warnings and your terrors, of us that have sat by our graves for years, and been confounded by the awfu’ silence. Why can they no speak nor we hear? You’ll no tell me that Heaven and the presence of God can take the love out of a living soul. I wish you would not disturb my mind with your vain thoughts; it’s no a question I dare go into. If love’s no everlasting, I’ve no desire to be everlasting myself; and, if I’m to be no more hereafter to them that belong to me, than to legions of strange angels, or a haill nation of fremd folk!--Whisht, callant! you’re no to say such things to me.”