“Uncle John, there is not another man in the world so generous and unselfish as you are.”

“There are plenty as good men in every congregation o’ the Lord; if there wasna they would scatter in no time.  Then you are willing, are you?  Gie me your hand, Davie.  I shall look to you to do your best for baith o’ us.”

“I have not drunk a drop for two months, uncle.  I never intend to drink again.”

“I hae given it up mysel’,” said the old man, with an affected indifference that was pathetic in its self-abnegation.  “I thought twa going a warfare together might do better than ane alone.  Ye ken Christ sent out the disciples by twa and twa.  And, Davie, when you are hard beset, just utter the name of Christ down in your heart, and see how much harder it is to sin.”

CHAPTER IX.

The arrangement had been a very pleasant one, every way, but somehow John did not feel as if David had as much outside help as he needed.  The young man was not imaginative; an ideal, however high, was a far less real thing to David than to old John.  He pondered during many sleepless hours the advisability of having David sign the pledge.  David had always refused to do it hitherto.  He had a keen sense of shame in breaking a verbal promise on this subject; but he had an almost superstitious feeling regarding the obligation of anything he put his name to; and this very feeling made John hesitate to press the matter.  For, he argued, and not unwisely, “if David should break this written obligation, his condition would seem to himself irremediable, and he would become quite reckless.”

In the morning this anxiety was solved.  When John came down to breakfast, he found David walking about the room with a newspaper in his hand, and in a fever heat of martial enthusiasm.  “Uncle,” he cried, “O Uncle John, such glorious news!  The Alamo is taken.  Colin Campbell and his Highlanders were first at the ramparts, and Roy and Hector Callendar were with them.  Listen?” and he threw the passion and fervor of all his military instincts into the glowing words which told, how in a storm of fire and shot, Sir Colin and his Highland regiment had pushed up the hill; and how when the Life Guards were struggling to reach their side, the brave old commander turned round and shouted, “We’ll hae nane but Hieland bonnets here!” “O Uncle John, what would I not have given to have marched with Roy and Hector behind him?  With such a leader I would not turn my back on any foe.”

“David, you have a far harder fight before you, and a far grander Captain.”

“Uncle, uncle, if I could see my foe; if I could meet him face to face in a real fight; but he steals into my heart, even by my nostrils, and unmans me, before I am aware.”

John rang the bell sharply, and when Jenny came, he amazed her by saying, “Bring me here from the cellar three bottles of whiskey.”  He spoke so curt and determined that for once Jenny only wondered, and obeyed.