early years was strong and
memorable--the Darlings of Millknowe. Millknowe is a large sheep-farm
in the heart of the Lammermoors, just where the young Whitadder winds
round the base of Spartleton Law. The family at Millknowe, consisting
at this time of three brothers and two sisters, all of whom had
reached middle life, were relatives of his father, the connection
dating from the time when his forebears were farmers in the same
region. They were a notable family, full of all kinds of interesting
lore, literary, scientific, and pastoral, and they exercised a
boundless hospitality to all, whether gentle or simple, who came
within their reach. One of them, a maiden sister, Miss Jean Darling,
took a special charge of her young cousin, and in a special degree won
his confidence. From the first she understood him. She saw the power
that was awakening within him, and was, particularly in his student
days, his friend and adviser.

As the summer of 1835 advanced, it came to be a grave question with
him whether he could return to college in the ensuing winter. His
father had had a serious illness; and, though he was now recovering,
there was a doctor's bill to settle, and he still required more care
and better nourishment than ordinary. Cairns was afraid that, with
these extra expenses to be met, his own return to College might
involve too serious a drain on the family resources. While matters
were in this state, and while he was still at Longyester, he received
a request from Mr. Trotter, the schoolmaster of his native parish of
Ayton, to come and assist him in the school and with the tuition of
boarders in his house. This offer was quite in the line of the only
ideas as to his future life he had as yet entertained; for, so far
as he had thought seriously on the subject, he had thought of being a
teacher. On the other hand, while his great ambition was to return to
the University, the fact that most of his class-fellows in the past
session had been older than himself suggested to him that he could
quite well afford to delay a year before he returned.

So he went to Ayton, lodging while there with his father's youngest
sister, Nancy, who had come thither from Ayton Hill along with her
mother, when her brother John was married in 1814, and had remained
there ever since. Cairns had not been two months in Ayton before his
responsibilities were considerably increased. Mr. Trotter resigned his
office, and the heritors asked the ass