h other in the
pursuit of the speckled trout. The old man taught his boy, amid the
secluded glens, or upon the naked hill-tops, to modulate his voice to
the hymns consecrated to religion throughout Scotland; the rich melody
of the "Old Hundred," or the "Martyrs," rose in concert from their
lips; or, perhaps the aged shepherd played on the simple Scottish
flageolet, on which he had been, in his youth, a skilful performer,
some of the touching airs of his mother-land, and then, placing the
pipe in William's hands, assisted him, by kind encouragement or
skilful rebuke, to follow out the beautiful strain. Thus they lived
together--

"A pair of friends, though one was young,
And Matthew seventy-two."

Linked closer and closer together by these sweet natural ties, they
were happy, and their affection was the grateful theme of all the
inhabitants of the valley.

A little incident which occurred in William's childhood had determined
his father to rear him for the ministry. While yet only five years of
age, he was found one day by his father, with an old family Bible upon
his knee, some of the leaves of which he had torn out, and was
arranging after a fashion of his own. On being asked by his father
what he was doing, he replied, "That he thought the evangelists
differed in some portions of their history, and that he was trying to
discover wherein the difference lay."[C] The old man retired with
streaming eyes; and from that moment William Riddell was, like Samuel
of old, vowed to the service of God.

As he grew in years, he displayed proofs of talent which astonished
the shepherd, and filled old David's heart with exultation. Before he
was fifteen, there was not a stream nor a legend that belonged to his
native hills which he had not celebrated in song. His pen was always
ready to assist the shepherd lads in their rustic loves; and the
crabbed and grasping little tyrants of the valley had, more than once,
winced under his satire or his ridicule. The old man, as we have said,
rejoiced in the genius of his son, and had always, in his ample
pockets, good store of the young poet's productions, wherewith to
regale such of his companions as chose to listen. Rachel, however,
with a more prophetic eye, saw, in the vivacity of her boy's nature,
the germs of as much grief as joy to himself, and used commonly to
shake her head and sigh, while her husband and his friends were
convulsed with laughter at some of William's salli