"Thy foot He'll not let slide, nor will
He slumber that thee keeps,"

it ran: a strange conglomerate of the unpronounceable, a sad model
to set in childhood before one who was himself to be a versifier,
and a task in recitation that really merited reward. And I must
suppose the old man thought so too, and was either touched or
amused by the performance; for he took me in his arms with most
unwonted tenderness, and kissed me, and gave me a little kindly
sermon for my psalm; so that, for that day, we were clerk and
parson. I was struck by this reception into so tender a surprise
that I forgot my disappointment. And indeed the hope was one of
those that childhood forges for a pastime, and with no design upon
reality. Nothing was more unlikely than that my grandfather should
strip himself of one of those pictures, love-gifts and reminders of
his absent sons; nothing more unlikely than that he should bestow
it upon me. He had no idea of spoiling children, leaving all that
to my aunt; he had fared hard himself, and blubbered under the rod
in the last century; and his ways were still Spartan for the young.
The last word I heard upon his lips was in this Spartan key. He
had over-walked in the teeth of an east wind, and was now near the
end of his many days. He sat by the dining-room fire, with his
white hair, pale face and bloodshot eyes, a somewhat awful figure;
and my aunt had given him a dose of our good old Scotch medicine,
Dr. Gregory's powder. Now that remedy, as the work of a near
kinsman of Rob Roy himself, may have a savour of romance for the
imagination; but it comes uncouthly to the palate. The old
gentleman had taken it with a wry face; and that being
accomplished, sat with perfect simplicity, like a child's, munching
a "barley-sugar kiss." But when my aunt, having the canister open