Oor ain folk times

236 MY MOTHER'S GOOD-BYE
Comparing the preaching of ' her ain guidman, the
minister,' with that of another who was no persona grata
with my mother, she said on one occasion to George :
'Ah, laddie ! yer father gied's guid pasture — plenty
o' clover in't ; nae bare pykin like this puir craetur.'
I could not give anything more characteristic of the
peculiar bent of her mind than the last words she said
to myself when I was leaving for New Zealand. Her
heart, I knew, was very full. I had been a wild,
harum-scarum young student, perhaps not very vicious,
but headstrong, rackety, too fond of pleasure, and full
of prankish tricks. The dear old lady could not trust
herself to come all the way to the station to see me off
by the train. She was full of anxiety concerning my
future, both for my soul and body. She knew if it was
well with me spiritually it could not fail to be well with
my prospects for this life in the highest sense ; and yet
with the anxious concern for my soul's health there
mingled that peculiarly Scottish complexity of feeling
that gave all its proper value to a fair outward appear-
ance as an index to character, and a means of creating
a good impression so as to get on in the world. Perhaps
I had not been careful enough of money and clothes,
seeing how hard it had been for the self-denying old
couple to provide them. At any rate, it was in no
spirit of reproach, but in genuine, unaffected, loving con-
cern, that, stopping at the top of Dundas Street, under the
shade of an overarching yew tree, placing her thin, worn
hands on my broad young shoulders, and kissing me —
the last kiss for many weary years — she said : ' Weel,
Jamie, fear God, an' tak' care o' yer claes, an' there's
nae fear but ye'll get on.'