The thoughts of my heart have been broken in upon, and nothing can make whole what has been shivered to pieces." This was to the point, as Dannie Thummel said to his needle; so just for speaking's sake, and to rouse him up a bit, I said, "Keh, man, what need ye care sae muckle about the country ?--It'll never be like our bonny streets, with all the braw shop windows, and the auld kirk; and the stands with the horn spoons and luggies; and all the carts on the market- days; and the Duke's gate, and so on." "Ay, but, maister," answered Mungo, "ye was never brought up in the country--ye never kent what it was to wander about in the simmer glens, wi' naething but the warm sun looking down on ye, the blue waters streaming ower the braes, the birds singing, and the air like to grow sick wi' the breath of blooming birks, and flowers of all colours, and wild-thyme sticking full of bees, humming in joy and thankfulness--Ye never kent, maister, what it was to wake in the still morning, when, looking out, ye saw the snaws lying for miles round about ye on the hills, breast deep, shutting ye out from the world, as it were; the foot of man never coming during the storm to your door, nor the voice of a stranger heard from ae month's end till the ither.

See, it is coming on o' hail the now, and my mother with my sister--I have but ane--and my four brithers, will be looking out into the drift, and missing me away for the first time frae their fireside.

They'll hae a dreary winter o't, breaking their hearts for me--their ballants and their stories will never be sae funny again--and my heart is breaking for them." With this, the tears prap-prapped down his cheeks, but his pride bade him turn his head round to hide them from me.

A heart of stone would have felt for him.
I saw it was in vain to persist long, as the laddie was falling out of his clothes as fast as leaves from the November tree; so I wrote home by limping Jamie the carrier, telling his father the state of things, and advising him, as a matter of humanity, to take his son out to the free air of the hills again, as the town smoke did not seem to agree with his stomach; and, as he might be making a sticked tailor of one who was capable of being bred a good farmer; no mortal being likely to make a great progress in any thing, unless the heart goes with the handiwork.
Some folks will think I acted right, and others wrong in this matter; if I erred, it was on the side of mercy, and my conscience does not upbraid me for the transaction.

In due course of time, I had an answer from Mr Glen; and we got every thing ready and packed up, against the hour that Jamie was to set out again.
Mungo got himself all dressed; and Benjie had taken such a liking to him, that I thought he would have grutten himself senseless when he heard he was going away back to his own home.