"Is love a study at all?" asked Andrew, bitterly. "It is but the trail of idleness. But all idleness is folly; therefore, love is folly."
Mr. Eassie was not so keen a logician as his guest, but he had age for a major premiss. He was easy-going rather than a coward; a preacher who, in the pulpit, looked difficulties genially in the face, and passed them by.
Riach had a very long neck. He was twenty-five years of age, fair, and somewhat heavily built, with a face as inexpressive as book-covers.
A native of Wheens and an orphan, he had been brought up by his uncle, who was a weaver and read Herodotus in the original. The uncle starved himself to buy books and talk about them, until one day he got a good meal, and died of it. Then Andrew apprenticed himself to a tailor.
When his time was out, he walked fifty miles to Aberdeen University, and got a bursary. He had been there a month, when his professor said good-naturedly—
"Don't you think, Mr. Riach, you would get on better if you took your hands out of your pockets?"
"No, sir, I don't think so," replied Andrew, in all honesty.
When told that he must apologise, he did not see it, but was willing to argue the matter out.
Next year he matriculated at Edinburgh, sharing one room with two others; studying through the night, and getting their bed when they rose. He was a failure in the classics, because they left you where you were, but in his third year he woke the logic class-room, and frightened the professor of moral philosophy.
He was nearly rusticated for praying at a debating society for a divinity professor who was in the chair.
"O Lord!" he cried, fervently, "open his eyes, guide his tottering footsteps, and lead him from the paths of folly into those that are lovely and of good report, for lo! his days are numbered, and the sickle has been sharpened, and the corn is not yet ripe for the cutting."
When Andrew graduated he was known as student of mark.
He returned to Wheens, before setting out for London, with the consciousness of his worth.
Yet he was only born to follow, and his chance of making a noise in the world rested on his meeting a stronger than himself. During his summer vacations he had weaved sufficient money to keep himself during the winter on porridge and potatoes.
Clarrie was beautiful and all that.
"We'll say no more about it, then," the minister said after a pause.
"The matter," replied Andrew, "cannot be dismissed in that way. Reasonable or not, I do undoubtedly experience sensations similar to Clarrie's. But in my love I notice a distinct ebb and flow. There are times when I don't care a hang for her."
"Andrew!"
"I beg your pardon. Still, it is you who have insisted on discussing this question in the particular instance. Love in the abstract is of much greater moment."
"I have sometimes thought, Andrew," Mr. Eassie said, "that you are lacking in the imaginative faculty."
"In other words, love is a mere fancy. Grant that, and see to what it leads. By imagining that I have Clarrie with me I am as well off as if I really had. Why, then, should I go to needless expense, and take her from you?"
The white-haired minister rose, for the ten o'clock bell was ringing and it was time for family worship.
"My boy," he said, "if there must be a sacrifice let the old man make it. I, too, have imagination."
For the moment there was a majesty about him that was foreign to his usual bearing. Andrew was touched, and gripped his hand.
"Rather," he cried, "let the girl we both love remain with you. She will be here waiting for me—should I return."
"More likely," said the minister, "she will be at the bank."
The banker was unmarried, and had once in February and again in June seen Clarrie home from the Dorcas Society. The town talked about it. Strictly speaking, gentlemen should not attend these meetings; but in Wheens there was not much difference between the men and the women.
That night, as Clarrie bade Andrew farewell at the garden gate, he took her head in his hands and asked what this talk about the banker meant.
It was no ignoble curiosity that prompted him. He would rather have got engaged to her there and then than have left without feeling sure of her.
His sweetheart looked her reply straight his eyes.
"Andrew!" was all she said.
It was sufficient. He knew that he did not require to press his point.
Lover's watches stand still. At last Andrew stooped and kissed her upturned face.
"If a herring and a half," he said anxiously, "cost three half-pence, how many will you get for elevenpence?"
Clarrie was mute.
Andrew shuddered; he felt that he was making a mistake.
"Why do I kiss you?" he cried. "What good does it do either of us?"
He looked fiercely at his companion, and her eyes filled with tears.
"Where even is the pleasure in it?" he added brutally.
The only objectionable thing about Clarrie was her long hair.
She wore a black frock and looked very breakable. Nothing irritates a man so much.
Andrew gathered her passionately in his arms, while a pained, puzzled expression struggled to reach his face.
Then he replaced her roughly on the ground and left her.
It was impossible to say whether they were engaged.
Chapter II
Andrew reached King's Cross on the following Wednesday morning.
It was the first time he had set foot in England, and he naturally thought of Bannockburn.
He left his box in the cloak-room, and, finding his way into Bloomsbury, took a bed-room at the top of a house in Bernard Street.
Then he returned for his box, carried it on his back to his lodgings, and went out to buy a straw hat. It had not struck him to be lonely.
He bought two pork pies in an eating-house in Gray's Inn Road, and set out for Harley Street, looking at London on the way.
Mr. Gladstone was at home, but all his private secretaryships were already filled.
Andrew was not greatly disappointed, though he was too polite to say so. In politics he was a granite-headed Radical; and on several questions, such as the Church and Free Education, the two men were hopelessly at variance.
Mr. Chamberlain was the man with whom, on the whole, he believed it would be best to work. But Mr. Chamberlain could not even see him.
Looking back to this time, it is impossible not to speculate upon how things might have turned out had the Radical party taken Andrew to them in his day of devotion to their cause.
This is the saddest spectacle in life, a brave young man's first meeting with the world. How rapidly the milk turns to gall! For the cruellest of his acts the vivisectionist has not even the excuse that science benefits.
Here was a young Scotchman, able, pure, of noble ambition, and a first medallist in metaphysics. Genius was written on his brow. He may have written it himself, but it was there.
He offered to take a pound a week less than any other secretary in London. Not a Cabinet Minister would have him. Lord Randolph Churchill would not speak to him. He had fifty-eight testimonials with him. They would neither