"Is ignorance thus to command knowledge? Is reason thus to be silenced by boorish stupidity?" said Forester to himself, as he recollected the patience and candour with which Dr. Campbell and Henry used to converse with him. He began to think, that in cultivated society he had enjoyed more liberty of mind, more freedom of opinion, than he could taste in the company of an illiterate gardener. The gardener's son, though his name was Colin, had no Arcadian simplicity, nothing which could please the classic taste of Forester, or which could recall to his mind the Eclogues of Virgil, or the golden age; the Gentle Shepherd, or the Ayrshire Ploughman. Colin's favourite holiday's diversion was playing at _goff_; this game, which is played with a bat loaded with lead, and with a ball, which is harder than a cricket-ball, requires much strength and dexterity. Forester used, sometimes, to accompany the gardener's son to the _Links_,{7} where numbers of people, of different descriptions are frequently seen practising this diversion. Our hero was ambitious of excelling at the game of _goff_; and, as he was not particularly adroit, he exposed himself, in his first attempts, to the derision of the spectators, and he likewise received several severe blows. Colin laughed at him without mercy; and Forester could not help comparing the rude expressions of his new companion's untutored vanity with the unassuming manners and unaffected modesty of Henry Campbell. Forester soon took an aversion to the game of _goff_, and recollected Scotch reels with less contempt. {Footnote 7: A lea or common near Edinburgh.} One evening, after having finished his task of digging (for digging was now become a task), he was going to take a walk to Duddingstone lake, when Colin, who was at the same instant setting out for the Links, roughly insisted upon Forester's accompanying him. Our hero, who was never much disposed to yield to the taste of others, positively refused the gardener's son, with some imprudent expressions of contempt. From this moment Colin became his enemy, and, by a thousand malicious devices, contrived to show his vulgar hatred.