His mother had few means beyond the labour of her hands for their support.  She had kept him at the parish school until he was fifteen, and he had learned all that his master knew; and in three years more, by rising early and sitting late at her daily toils, and the savings of his field labour and occasional teaching, she was enabled to make preparation for sending him to Edinburgh.  Never did her wheel spin so blithely since her husband was taken from her side, as when she put the first lint upon the rock for his college sarks.  Proudly did she show to her neighbours her double spinel yarn—­observing, “It’s nae finer than he deserves, poor fallow, for he’ll pay me back some day.”  The web was bleached and the shirts made by her own hands; and the day of his departure arrived.  It was a day of joy mingled with anguish.  He attended the classes regularly and faithfully; and truly as St. Giles’s marked the hour, the long, lean figure of Thomas Jeffrey, in a suit of shabby black, and half a dozen volumes under his arm, was seen issuing from his garret in the West Bow, darting down the frail stair with the velocity of a shadow, measuring the Lawnmarket and High Street with gigantic strides, gliding like a ghost up the South Bridge, and sailing through the Gothic archway of the College, till the punctual student was lost in its inner chambers.  Years rolled by, and at length the great, the awful day arrived—­

“Big with the fate of Thomas and his mother.”

He was to preach his trial sermon; and where?  In his own parish—­in his native village!  It was summer, but his mother rose by daybreak.  Her son, however, was at his studies before her; and when she entered his bedroom with a swimming heart and swimming eyes, Thomas was stalking across the floor, swinging his arms, stamping his feet, and shouting his sermon to the trembling curtains of a four-post bed, which she had purchased in honour of him alone.  “Oh, my bairn! my matchless bairn!” cried she, “what a day o’ joy is this for your poor mother!  But oh, hinny, hae ye it weel aff?  I hope there’s nae fears o’ ye stickin’ or using notes!” “Dinna fret, mother—­dinna fret,” replied the young divine; “stickin’ and notes are out o’ the question.  I hae every word o’ it as clink as the A B C.”  The appointed hour arrived.  She was first at the kirk.  Her heart felt too big for her bosom.  She could not sit—­she walked again to the air—­she trembled back—­she gazed restless on the pulpit.  The parish minister gave out the psalm—­the book shook while she held it.  The minister prayed, again gave out a psalm, and left the pulpit.  The book fell from Mrs. Jeffrey’s hand.  A tall figure paced along the passage.  He reached the pulpit stairs—­took two steps at once.  It was a bad omen; but arose from the length of his limbs—­not levity.  He opened the door—­his knees smote upon one another.  He sat down—­he was paler than death.  He rose—­his bones were paralytic.  The Bible was opened—­his