The Primrose Path: A Chapter in the Annals of the Kingdom of FifeOliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
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The Primrose Path: A Chapter in the Annals of the Kingdom of Fife
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Fife (Scotland) -- Fiction
“St. An’rews!” he said; “send the boy to St. An’rews to sleep away his
time in an auld hole where there’s naething doing! Na, na, I’ll no hear
o’ that. Send him to me, and I’ll look after him. We know what we’re
about in Glasskie; nane o’ your dreamin’ and dozin’ there. We ken the
value o’ time and the value o’ brains, and how to make use o’ them.
There’s a room that’s never used at the tap o’ the house, and I’ll see
till ’im,” said the generous trader.
Mrs. Glen, though half offended at this depreciation of native
learning, was pleased and proud of her brother’s liberality.
“I’ll no hear a word against St. An’rews,” she said. “Mony a clever
man’s come out of it; but still I’m no blind to the advantages on the
other side. The lad’s at an age when it’s a grand thing to have a man
over him. No but what he’s biddable: but laddies will be laddies, and a
man in the house is aye an advantage. So if you’re in earnest, Robert
(and I’m much obliged to ye for your guid opinion of him), I’m no
saying but what I’ll take ye at your word.”
“You may be sure I mean it, or I wadna say it,” said her brother; and
so the bargain was made.
Rob went to Glasgow, half eager, half reluctant, as is the manner of
boys, and in due time went through his classes, and was entered at the
Divinity Hall. A Scotch student of his condition has seldom luxurious
or over-dainty life in his long vacations--six months long; and
calculated for this purpose, that the student may be self-supporting,
Rob did many things which kept him independent. He helped his uncle in
the shop at first with the placidity of use and wont, thinking a good
shop a fine thing, as who can doubt it is? But when Rob began to get on
in his learning, and was able to take a tutorship, he discovered with a
pang that a shop was not so fine a thing as he supposed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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