“What the deuce do you mean by that? Give me the oar! We don’t row like that on the Thames, I can tell you,” said the stranger; and the brief skirmish between them for the possession of the oar having terminated abruptly by the intervention of Colin the elder, who was still within hearing, the two boys set off, sullenly enough, down the loch. The rainbow was dying off by this time, the clouds rolling out again over the hills; and the celestial pillars and heavenly archways had no longer, as may be supposed, since this rude invasion of the real and disagreeable, the least remnant of ground to stand upon in the thoughts of young Colin of Ramore.
“Ye saw the young gentleman safe to the pier? He’s a bonnie lad, though maybe no as weel-mannered as ane would like to see,” said Mrs. Campbell. “Keep me! such a way to name his father--Bairns maun be awfu’ neglected in such a grand house--aye left wi’ servants, and never trained to trust their bits of secrets to father or mother. Laddies,” said the farmer’s wife, with a little solemnity, looking across the sleeping baby upon the four heads of different sizes which bent over their supper at the table before her, “mind you aye, that, right or wrong, them that’s maist interested in whatever befalls you is them that belongs to you--maist ready to praise if ye’ve done weel, and excuse you if ye’ve done wrang. I hope you were civil to the strange callant, Colin, my man?”
“Oh, ay,” said young Colin, not without a movement of conscience; but he did not think it necessary to enter into details.
“When a callant like that is pridefu’, and looks as if he thought himself better than other folk, I hope my laddies are no the ones to mind,” said the mistress of Ramore. “It shows he hasna had the advantages that might have been expected. It’s nae harm to you, but a great deal o’ harm to him. Ye dinna ken how weel off you are, you boys,” said the mother, making a little address to them as they sat over their supper; Little Johnnie, whose porridge was too hot for him, turned towards her the round, wondering black eyes, which beamed out like a pair of stray stars from his little freckled face, and through his wisps of flaxen hair, bleached white by rain and sun; but the three others went on very steadily with their supper, and did not disturb themselves; “there’s aye your father at hand ready to tell ye whatever you want to ken--no like yon poor callant, that would have to gang to a tutor, or a servant, or something worse; no that he’s an ill laddie; but I’m aye keen to see ye behave yoursels like gentlemen, and yon wasna ony great specimen, as it was very easy to see.”