“You are not better as you are. You are just good for nothing in this bonnie world that God has made--except to put good meat into you that other folk have laboured to get ready, and to kill the blessed days He has given you to serve Him in, with your old books, and your cards, and any silly things that come into your head. I have seen you throwing sticks at a bit of wood for hours together, and been thankful sometimes that you were diverting yourselves like two bairns, and no just lying and lounging about like two dogs in the warmth of the fire. Oh, Robbie, what it is to me to say that to my son! and all the time the sword hanging over your heads that any day, any day may come down!” “By Jove, the old girl’s right, Bob!” said a voice behind. Lew had become curious as to the soft murmur of Mrs Ogilvy’s voice, which he could hear running on faintly, not much interrupted by Robbie’s deeper tones. It was not often she “preached,” as they said--indeed she had seldom been allowed to go further than the mildest beginning; but Rob had been this time caught unprepared, and his mother had taken the advantage. Lew came in softly, with his lips framed to whistle, and his hands in his pockets. He had already picked his comrade out of a sudden Slough of Despond, caused by alarm at the declaration of the visitor, which, to tell the truth, had made himself very uneasy. It would not do to let the mother complete the discouragement: but this adventurer from the wilds had a candid soul; and while Robert stood sullen, beat down by what his mother said, yet resisting it, the other came in with a look and word of acquiescence. “Yes, by Jove, she was right!” It did not cost him much to acknowledge this theoretical justice of reproof. “The difficulty is,” he added calmly, “to know what to do in strange diggings like these. They’re out of our line, don’t you know. I was talking seriously to him there the other day about doing a stroke of work: but he wouldn’t hear of it--not here, he said, not in his own country. Ask him; he’ll tell you. I don’t understand the reason why.” Mrs Ogilvy, startled, looked from one to another: she did not know what to think. What was the stroke of work which the leader had proposed, which the follower would not consent to? Was it something for which to applaud Robbie, or to blame him? Her heart longed to believe that it was the first--that he had done well to refuse: but she could only look blankly from one to another, uninformed by the malicious gleam in Lew’s eyes, or by the spark of indignant alarm in those of Robbie. Their meaning was quite beyond her ken. “If you will sit down,” she said, “both of you, and have a moment’s patience while I speak. Mr Lew, I am in no way your unfriend.” “I never thought so,” he said: “on the contrary, mother. You have always been very good to me.”