When Gavin was twelve he went to the university, and also got a place in a shop as errand boy. He used to run through the streets between his work and his classes. Potatoes and salt fish, which could then be got at two pence the pound if bought by the half-hundred weight, were his food. There was not always a good meal for two, yet when Gavin reached home at night there was generally something ready for him, and Margaret had supped "hours ago." Gavin's hunger urged him to fall to, but his love for his mother made him watchful. "What did you have yourself, mother?" he would demand suspiciously. "Oh, I had a fine supper, I assure you." "What had you?" "I had potatoes, for one thing." "And dripping?" "You may be sure." "Mother, you're cheating me. The dripping hasn't been touched since yesterday." "I dinna--don't--care for dripping--no much." Then would Gavin stride the room fiercely, a queer little figure. "Do you think I'll stand this, mother? Will I let myself be pampered with dripping and every delicacy while you starve?" "Gavin, I really dinna care for dripping." "Then I'll give up my classes, and we can have butter." "I assure you I'm no hungry. It's different wi' a growing laddie." "I'm not a growing laddie," Gavin would say, bitterly; "but, mother, I warn you that not another bite passes my throat till I see you eating too." So Margaret had to take her seat at the table, and when she said "I can eat no more," Gavin retorted sternly, "Nor will I, for fine I see through you." These two were as one far more than most married people, and, just as Gavin in his childhood reflected his mother, she now reflected him. The people for whom she sewed thought it was contact with them that had rubbed the broad Scotch from her tongue, but she was only keeping pace with Gavin. When she was excited the Harvie words came back to her, as they come back to me. I have taught the English language all my life, and I try to write it, but everything I say in this book I first think to myself in the Doric. This, too, I notice, that in talking to myself I am broader than when gossiping with the farmers of the glen, who send their children to me to learn English, and then jeer at them if they say "old lights" instead of "auld lichts." To Margaret it was happiness to sit through the long evenings sewing, and look over her work at Gavin as he read or wrote or recited to himself the learning of the schools. But she coughed every time the weather changed, and then Gavin would start. "You must go to your bed, mother," he would say, tearing himself from his books; or he would sit beside her and talk of the dream that was common to both--a dream of a manse where Margaret was mistress and Gavin was called the minister. Every night Gavin was at his mother's bedside to wind her shawl round her feet, and while he did it Margaret smiled. "Mother, this is the chaff pillow you've taken out of my bed, and given me your feather one."