“I mean to be a minister,” said Colin, with a furious blush. His thoughts on the subject, if he could but have expressed them, were magnificent enough, but nothing was more impossible to the shy country lad, than to explain the ambition which glowed in his eager, visionary mind. He would have sacrificed a finger at any time, rather than talk of the vague but splendid intentions which were fermenting secretly in absolute silence within his reserved Scotch bosom. His new friend looked with a little curiosity at the subdued brightness of the boy’s eyes, which spoke more emphatically than his words.
“They a’ mean to be ministers,” said Lauderdale, in his reflective way; “half of them would do far better to be cobblers; but nae fool could ever be persuaded. As for you, I think there’s something in you, or I wouldna have fashed my head about you and your gown. You’ve got a fair start, and nae drawbacks. I would like to see you go straight forward, and be good for something in your generation. You needna look glum at me; I’ll never be good for much mysel’. You see I’ve learnt to be fond of talking,” he said, philosophically; “and a man that takes up that line early in life seldom comes to much good; though I grant you there’s exceptions, like Macaulay, for example. I was just entered at college, when my father died,” he continued, falling into a historical strain, “I was only a laddie like yoursel’, but I had to give up that thought, and work to help the rest. Now they are all scattered, and my mother dead, and I’m my own master. No that I’m much the better for that; but, you see, after I got this situation”----
“Oh, an honourable occupation,” said his tall friend, with a gradually brightening smile. “There’s ane of the same trade mentioned with commendation in the Acts of the Apostles. Him and St. Paul were great friends. But you see I’m free for the most part of the day; and, it being a fixed idea in my mind that I was to go to the college some time or other, it was but natural that I should enter mysel’ as soon as I was able. I may go forward, and I may not; it depends on the world more than on me. So your name’s Colin Campbell?--the same as Sir Colin; but, if you’re to be a minister, you can never be anything mair than a minister. In any other line of life a lad can rise if he likes, but there’s nae promotion possible to _that_. If I were you, and fifteen, I would choose another trade.”