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Updated: May 23, 2025
David, who had hitherto avoided his old companion with the utmost ingenuity, began hurriedly to inquire whether he was going to look at the evening's telegram. 'Yes no what matter? You can tell me. David, my lad, Ancrum told me you had been ill, but The old man slipped his arm through that of the youth and looked at him fixedly. His own face was all furrowed and drawn, the eyes red.
Ancrum went in and stood with his back to the fire which John had just made for the kettle and the minister's tea, when David came in with an armful of books and shut the door behind him. Ancrum let him put down his cargo, and then walked up to him.
Enraged by the English desecration of his ancestors' graves at Melrose Abbey, Angus united with Arran, Norman Leslie, and Buccleuch to annihilate an English force at Ancrum Moor, where Henry's men lost 800 slain and 2000 prisoners. The loyalty of Angus to his country was now, by innocents like Arran, thought assured.
'Twelve hours' shop, said the minister reflecting, 'more or less, two hours' work before shop, three hours or so after shop; that's what you may call driving it hard. You couldn't do it, Richard Ancrum, and he shook his head with a whimsical melancholy. 'But you were always a poor starveling. Youth that is youth's tough.
Gropptty was induced to purchase for the traveller "such, necessaries as he wanted," and Captain Hamilton went to solicit from Lord Ancrum a loan of twenty pounds for expenses. His lordship having unaccountably refused the advance, the guileless Gropptty agreed to lend ten guineas upon Captain Hamilton's note of hand, which, as he in his examination complained, was still "unsatisfied."
'Eh it's been nobbut raggy weather up o' the moors this winter, Davy, an' a great lot o' sheep lost. Nobbut twothrey o' mine, I thank th' Lord. But in the midst of a most unflattering account of the later morals and development of the Wigson family, Reuben stopped dead short, with a stare at the door. 'Wal, aa niver! theer's Mr. Ancrum hissel, I do uphowd yo!
'Well, look here, said Ancrum, stopping short; 'this won't do for talk, as I said before; but I must know all about you, and I must tell you what I can about myself. I lodge in Mortimer Road, you know, up Fallowfield way. You can get there by tram in twenty minutes; when will you come and see me? Tonight? The lad thought a moment. 'Would Wednesday night do, sir?
The hours he spent this winter by her kitchen fire, chatting with 'Lias, or eating havercakes, or helping Margaret with some household work, supplied him for the first time with something of what his youth was, in truth, thirsting for the common kindliness of natural affection. But certainly, to most observers, he seemed to deteriorate. Mr. Ancrum could make nothing of him.
He sat crouched over the flickering fire, saying nothing, letting Ancrum soliloquise as he pleased. His mind surged to and fro, indeed, as Ancrum talked between the poles of repulsion and response. His nature was not as Ancrum's, and every now and then the quick critical intellect flashed through his misery, detecting an assumption, probing an hypothesis.
'That ought to be enough for a top-coat, you rascal, with only yourself to feed, said Mr. Ancrum, stretching himself in his hard armchair, so as to let his lame leg with its heavy boot rest comfortably on the fender. David had noticed at first sight of him that his old playfellow had grown to look much older than in the Clough End days.
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