I returned, however, home, thoughtful and sad, and never, but once, thought the house so deserted and solitary as during that evening. My mother was not a Cameronian by communion, but she was in fact one in spirit. This spirit she had by inheritance, and it was kept alive by an occasional visit from "Fairly." This redoubted champion of the Covenant drew me one day towards him, and, placing me betwixt his knees, proceeded to question me how I would like to be a minister; and as I preserved silence, he proceeded to explain that he did not mean a parish minister, with a manse and glebe and stipend, but a poor Cameronian hill-preacher like himself. As he uttered these last words, I looked up, and saw before me an austere countenance, and a threadbare black coat hung loosely over what is termed a hunchback. I had often heard Fairly mentioned, not only with respect, but enthusiasm, and had already identified him and his followers with the "guid auld persecuted folks" of whom I had heard so much. Yet there was something so strange, not to say forbidding, in Fairly's appearance, that I hesitated to give my consent, and continued silent; whereupon Fairly rose to depart, observing to my mother, that "my time was not come yet." I did not then fully comprehend the meaning of this expression, nor do I perhaps now, but it passed over my heart like an awakening breeze over the strings of an Æolian harp. I immediately sprang forward, and catching Fairly by the skirt of his coat, exclaimed-- "Oh stay, sir!--dinna gang and leave us, and I will do onything ye like." "But then mind, my wee man," continued Fairly in return, "mind that, if ye join us, ye will have neither house nor hame, and will often be cauld and hungry, without a bed to lie on." "I dinna care," was my uncouth, but resolute response. "There's mair metal in that callant than ye're aware o'," rejoined Fairly, addressing himself to my mother, and looking all the while most affectionately into my countenance. "Here, my little fellow, here's a penny for ye, to buy a _charitcher_; and gin ye leeve to be a man, ye'll aiblins be honoured wi' upholding the doctrines which it contains, on the mountain and in the glen, when my auld banes are mixed wi' the clods." I looked again at Fairly as he pronounced these words, and had an angel descended from heaven in all the radiance and benignity of undimmed glory, such a presence would not have impressed me more deeply with feelings of love, veneration, and esteem. This colloquy, short as it was, exercised considerable influence over my future life.