Long ere he arrived at this, however, the falsehood and utter meanness of his behaviour to Isy had become plain to him, bringing with it such an overpowering self-contempt and self-loathing, that he was tempted even to self-destruction to escape the knowledge that he was himself the very man who had been such, and had done such things. “To know my deed, ’twere best not know myself!” he might have said with Macbeth. But he must live on, for how otherwise could he make any atonement? And with the thought of reparation, and possible forgiveness and reconcilement, his old love for Isy rushed in like a flood, grown infinitely nobler, and was uplifted at last into a genuine self-abandoning devotion. But until this final change arrived, his occasional paroxysms of remorse touched almost on madness, and for some time it seemed doubtful whether his mind must not retain a permanent tinge of insanity. He conceived a huge disgust of his office and all its requirements; and sometimes bitterly blamed his parents for not interfering with his choice of a profession that was certain to be his ruin. One day, having had no delirium for some hours, he suddenly called out as they stood by his bed— “Oh, mother! oh, father! _why_ did you tempt me to such hypocrisy? _Why_ did you not bring me up to walk at the plough-tail? _Then_ I should never have had to encounter the damnable snares of the pulpit! It was that which ruined me—the notion that I must take the minister for my pattern, and live up to my idea of _him_, before even I had begun to cherish anything real in me! It was the road royal to hypocrisy! Without that rootless, worthless, devilish fancy, I might have been no worse than other people! Now I am lost! Now I shall never get back to bare honesty, not to say innocence! They are both gone for ever!” The poor mother could only imagine it his humility that made him accuse himself of hypocrisy, and that because he had not fulfilled to the uttermost the smallest duty of his great office. “Jamie, dear,” she cried, laying her cheek to his, “ye maun cast yer care upo’ Him that careth for ye! He kens ye hae dene yer best—or if no yer vera best—for wha daur say that?—ye hae at least dene what ye could!” “Na, na!” he answered, resuming the speech of his boyhood—a far better sign of him than his mother understood, “I ken ower muckle, and that muckle ower weel, to lay sic a flattering unction to my sowl! It’s jist as black as the fell mirk! ‘Ah, limed soul, that, struggling to be free, art more engaged!’” “Hoots, ye’re dreamin, laddie! Ye never was engaged to onybody—at least that ever I h’ard tell o’! But, ony gait, fash na ye aboot that! Gien it be onything o’ sic a natur that’s troublin ye, yer father and me we s’ get ye clear o’ ’t!” “Ay, there ye’re at it again! It was _you_ ’at laid the bird-lime! Ye aye tuik pairt, mither, wi’ the muckle deil that wad na rist till he had my sowl in his deepest pit!”