The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

WiUie Gillies. 201
college bursary—a poor affair, fifteen pounds a year, which
he eked out by teaching Edinboro' shopkeeper's bairns at
spare hours. Well, by that time, my father was dead, and
my brother had run away to be a soldier— he did not live
long enough to be bought off. I was the head of the
family and was soured because my brother had so miscarried.
But Kate was my pet from the first, and I was
prouder of her after my brother's loss than before. In pure
charity to Gillies I always invited him to come and live with
us in college vacation, which he did, and made himself
worth his keep t\.o, for he was too proud to be lazy. A
well-to-do farmer cast his eye upon Kate, and, like a fool,
spoke to me first instead of to the lassie. Aye, if ever you go
a-courting get the good will of the woman before you speak
to the friends. You're laughing. Well, don't take it to
yourself, I was only putting, what is it you call it?—
general proposition. 1 thought the farmer a likely offerer,
and told Kate, never expecting opposition, to prepare for
her bridal. But she put her finger in her eye and made
such a face over it that I relented. Thinking what could
be the matter, I questioned her a bit, and found out her
secret. She had promised herself av/ay to George Gillies, a
penniless student without hope of soon getting a kirk. I
had reason to be enraged, and I told her plainly that if she
did not marry agreeably to my will, she would, under our
father's will, forfeit her right to the few hundreds left to
her. The upshot was that she gave me the slip one night,
and I kept my word. Still her small tocher has been a
millstone about my neck. I confess I should not have kept
my wrath so long, and will now make atonement to my
sister and her bairns."
" Well ?"
"My sister and the two younger bairns will live with
me. This lad, Willie, must be helped to make his own
fortune. It is ill waiting for dead men's shoes— I may
change my mind and leave my gatherings to others, at
anyrate, I will not call him my heir ; it would ruin him ;
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