Cash: A Problem of Profit and Loss - Page 2

wad
fain set you up in a pu'pit and gie you the keys o' St. Peter; while
maister is for haeing you it a bank or twa in your pouch, and add
Ellenmount to Lockerby, and--"

"And if I could, Janet?"

"Tut, tut, lad! If it werna for 'if' you might put auld Scotland in a
bottle."

"But what was the upshot, Janet?"

"I canna tell. God alone understan's quarreling folk."

Then David went upstairs to his own room, and when he came down again
his face was set as dourly against the coming interview as it had been
against the mist and rain. The point at issue was quite familiar to
him; his mother wished him to continue his studies and prepare for the
ministry. In her opinion the greatest of all men were the servants of
the King, and a part of the spiritual power and social influence which
they enjoyed in St. Mungo's ancient city she earnestly coveted for her
son. "Didn't the Bailies and the Lord Provost wait for them? And were
not even the landed gentry and nobles obligated to walk behind a
minister in his gown and bands?"

Old Andrew Lockerby thought the honor good enough, but money was better.
All the twenty years that his wife had been dreaming of David ruling his
flock from the very throne of a pulpit, Andrew had been dreaming of him
becoming a great merchant or banker, and winning back the fair lands of
Ellenmount, once the patrimonial estate of the house of Lockerby. During
these twenty years both husband and wife had clung tenaciously to their
several intentions.

Now David's teachers--without any knowledge of these diverse
influences--had urged on him the duty of cultivating the unusual talents
confided to him, and of consecrating them to some noble service of God
and humanity. But David was ruled by many opposite feelings, and had
with all his book-learning the very smallest intimate acquaintance with
himself. He knew neither his strong points nor his weak ones, and had
not even a suspicion of the mighty potency of that mysterious love for
gold which really was the ruling passion in his breast.

The argument so long pending he knew was now to be finally settled, and
he was by no means unprepared for the discussion. He came slowly down
stairs, counting the points he wished to make on his fingers, and quite
resolved neither to be coaxed nor bullied out of his own individual
opinion. He was a handsome, stalwart fellow, as Scotchmen of
two-and-twenty go, for it takes about thirty-five years to fill up and
perfect the massive frames of "the men of old Gaul." About his
thirty-fifth year David would doubtless be a man of noble presence; but
even now there was a sense of youth and power about him that was very