DAVID. I did feel bitterly, father, the want of education. [Without
knowing it, he has a beautiful way of pronouncing this noble word.]

MAGGIE [holding out a kind hand to him]. David.

ALICK. I've missed it sore, David. Even now I feel the want of it in
the very marrow of me. I'm ashamed to think I never gave you your
chance. But when you were young I was so desperate poor, how could I
do it, Maggie?

MAGGIE. It wasn't possible, father.

ALICK [gazing at the book-shelves]. To be able to understand these
books! To up with them one at a time and scrape them as clean as
though they were a bowl of brose. Lads, it's not to riches, it's to
scholarship that I make my humble bow.

JAMES [who is good at bathos]. There's ten yards of them. And they
were selected by the minister of Galashiels. He said--

DAVID [quickly]. James.

JAMES. I mean--I mean--

MAGGIE [calmly]. I suppose you mean what you say, James. I hear,
David, that the minister of Galashiels is to be married on that Miss
Turnbull.

DAVID [on guard]. So they were saying.