then; but will you come?"

"Och, wee fellow, it would be foolish."

"You wouldn't have me think hard of a man of Raghery?"

"No, I wouldn't have any one think hard of the folk of Raghery, so I
suppose I'll have to come. I don't know what your Uncle Robin will say
to me for putting notions in your head. It's awful foolish. But I'll
come."

Section 10

"So there'd never be the making of a scholar in me, Uncle Robin. A ship
on the sea or a new strange person would be always more to me nor a
book. I can read and write and figure; what more do I want? And, och,
sir, the school would be a prison to me, the scholars droning and ink on
their fingers, and the hard-faced masters at the desk. I'd be woe for
the outside, for the sunshine and the water and the bellying winds--"

His Uncle Robin tapped the window-pane of the club and thought hard. The
Rathlin sailor stood by, puzzled.

"But, childeen asthore, sure you don't know now what you want. Your
career, laddie! Think a bit! The church, for instance--"

"Och, Uncle Robin, is it me in the church that must say my prayers by my
lee lone, so loath am I to let the people see what's in me? I'd be the
queer minister, dumb as a fish--"

"You once had a notion for the army, laddie."

"So I had, sir, and fine I'd like the uniforms and the swords and the
horses, but I wouldn't have the heart to kill a man, and me never
seeing him before. If a man did me a wrong, I'd kill him quick as I'd
wash my hands, but never seeing him before, I could na, I just could
na--"

"It's a clean thing, the sea," the Raghery man ventured.

"He's so very young," objected Uncle Robin.

"There's nothing but that or the books for me, Uncle Robin. A sailor or
a scholar--and I don't think I'd make out well with the books."

"The books aren't all they're cracked up to be, wee Shane. I've written
books myself, and who reads them but a wheen of graybeards, and they
drowsing by the fire? Knowledge, laddie, I have that.... And it isn't
even wisdom. Knowledge is like dry twigs you collect with care to make a
bit fire you can warm your shins at, and wisdom is the gift of God
that's like the blossom on the gorse. I've searched books and taken out
the marrow of dead men's brains, and after all, even all my knowledge
may be wrong.... Your father's name will be remembered as long as the
Gaidhlig lasts, for songs that came to him as easily as a woman's kiss.
And your Uncle Alan's footprints are near the pol