"An' muckle good cam' o't. Ye may fancy I'm talking like a sour,
disappointed auld carle. But I tell ye nay. I've got that's worth living
for, though I am downhearted at times, and fancy a's wrong, and there's na
hope for us on earth, we be a' sic liars--a' liars, I think: 'a universal
liars--rock substrawtum,' as Mr. Carlyle says. I'm a great liar often
mysel, especially when I'm praying. Do ye think I'd live on here in this
meeserable crankit auld bane-barrel o' a body, if it was not for The Cause,
and for the puir young fellows that come in to me whiles to get some
book-learning about the gran' auld Roman times, when folks didna care for
themselves, but for the nation, and a man counted wife and bairns and money
as dross and dung, in comparison wi' the great Roman city, that was the
mither o' them a', and wad last on, free and glorious, after they and their
bairns were a' dead thegither? Hoot, man! If I had na The Cause to care for
and to work for, whether I ever see it triumphant on earth or no--I'd just
tak' the cauld-water-cure off Waterloo-bridge, and mak' mysel a case for
the Humane Society.
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