"I hope you are better, Mr. Grant!" [Davie, his boy student] said. "I am so glad you are able to be down!"
"I am quite well," answered Donal. "I can't think what made me sleep so long. Why didn't you come and wake me, Davie, my boy?"
"Because Simmons told me you were ill, and I must not disturb you if you were ever so late in coming down."
"I hardly deserve any breakfast!" said Donal, turning to the table; "but if you will stand by me, and read while I take my coffee, we shall save a little time so."
"Yes, sir.--But your coffee must be quite cold! I will ring."
"No, no; I must not waste any more time. A man who cannot drink cold coffee ought to come down while it is hot."
"[Lord] Forgue won't drink cold coffee!" said Davie: "I don't see why you should!"
"Because I prefer to do with my coffee as I please; I will not have hot coffee for my master. I won't have it anything to me what humour the coffee may be in. I will be Donal Grant, whether the coffee be cold or hot. A bit of practical philosophy for you, Davie!"
"I think I understand you, sir: you would not have a man make a fuss about a trifle."
"Not about a real trifle. The co-relative of a trifle, Davie, is a smile. But I would take heed whether the thing that is called a trifle be really a trifle. Besides, there may be a point in a trifle that is the egg of an ought. It is a trifle whether this or that is nice; it is a point that I should not care. With us highlanders it is a point of breeding not to mind what sort of dinner we have, but to eat as heartily of bread and cheese as of roast beef. At least so my father and mother used to teach me, though I fear that refinement of good manners is going out of fashion even with the highlanders."
"It is good mmanners!" rejoined Davie with decision, "--and more than good manners! I should count it grant not to care what kind of diner I had. But I am afraid it is more than I shall ever come to!"
"You will never come to it by trying because you think it grand. Only mind, I did not say we were not to enjoy our roast beef more than our bread and cheese; that would be not to discriminate, where there is a difference. If bread and cheese were just as good to us as roast beef, there would be no victory in our contentment."
"I see!" said Davie.--"Wouldn't it be well," he asked, after a moment's pause, "to put oneself in training, Mr. Grant, to do without things--or at least to be able to do without them?"
"It is much better to do the lessons set you by one who knows how to teach, than to pick lessons for yourself out of your books. Davie, I have not that confidence in myself to think I should be a good teacher of myself."
"But you are a good teacher of me, sir!"
"I try--but then I'm set to teach you, and I am not set to teach myself: I am only set to make myself do what I am taught. When you are my teacher [Davie taught Donal things like skating], Davie, I try--don't I--to do everything you tell me?"
"Yes, indeed, sir!"
"But I am not set to obey myself!"
"No, nor anyone else, sir! You do not need to obey anyone, or have anyone teach you, sir!"
"Oh, don't I, Davie! On the contrary, I could not get on for one solitary moment without somebody to teach me. Look you here, Davie: I have so many lessons given me, that I have no time or need to add to them any of my own. If you were to ask the cook to let you have a cold dinner, you would perhaps eat it with pride, and take credit for what your hunger yet made quite agreeable to you. But the boy who does not grumble when he is told not to go out because it is raining and he has a cold, will not perhaps grumble either should he happen to find his dinner not at all nice."
Davie hung his head. It had been a very small grumble, but there are no sins for which there is less reason or less excuse than small ones: in no sense are they worth committing. And we grown people commit many more such than little children, and have our reward in childishness instead of childlikeness.
"It is so easy," continued Donal, "to do the thing we ordain ourselves, for in holding to it we make ourselves out fine fellows!--and that is such a mean kind of thing! Then when another who has the right, lays a thing upon us, we grumble--thought it be the truest and kindest thing, and the most reasonable and needful for us--even for our dignity--for our being worth anything! Depend upon it, Davie, to do what we are told is a far grander thing than to lay the severest rules upon ourselves--ay, and to stick to them, too!"
"But might there not be something good for us to do that we were not told of?"
"Whoever does the thing he is told to do--the thing, that is, that has a plain ought in it, will become satisfied that there is one who will not forget to tell him what must be done as soon as he is fit to do it."
The conversation lasted only while Donal ate his breakfast, with the little fellow standing beside him; it was soon over, but not soon to be forgotten. For the readiness of the boy to do what his master told him, was beautiful--and a great help and comfort, sometimes a rousing rebuke to his master, whose thoughts would yet occasionally tumble into one of the pitfalls of sorrow [because of his lost love].
"What!" he would say to himself, "am I so believed in by this child, that he goes at once to do my words, and shall I for a moment doubt the heart of the Father, or his power or will to set right whatever may have seemed to go wrong with his child!-- Go on, Davie! You are a good boy; I will be a better man!"