“Ay, Robin,” she replied, “that’s true; but for it a’, you maun admit that the schoolmaister an’ the meenister hae the best o’ it.”  But she felt that her counter was not very effective.

“My faither says meenisters are nae guid to the world, but schoolmaisters are,” said the boy, with a grudging admission for the teaching profession.  “But I dinna care.  I’d raither gang to work.  I dinna want to gang ony langer to the school.  I’m tired o’ it, an’ I want to leave it,” and there was more decision in his voice this time than ever.

“A’ richt, Robin,” said Mrs. Sinclair resignedly, as she emptied the peeled potatoes into a pot and put them on the fire.

There were now seven of a family, and she knew that Robert was needed to increase the earnings, and that meant there was nothing but the pit for him.

“You maun hae been real clever, though, to pass,” she said again, after a pause.  “How many failed?”

“Four, mither,” he cried, again waxing enthusiastic over the examination.  “Mysie Maitland passed, too.  She was first among the lasses, and I was first in the laddies.”

“Eh, man, Bob, learnin’ is a gran’ thing to hae,” she said wistfully, looking at him very tenderly.

“Ay, but I’m gaun to the pit,” he said decisively, fearing that she was again going to enlarge upon the schoolmaster’s life.

“Very weel,” she said after a bit, “I suppose ye’ll be lookin’ for a job.  Your faither was saying last nicht that ye’re too young to gang into the pit.  Ye maun be twelve years auld afore ye get doon the pit noo, ye ken.  So I suppose it’ll be the pithead for ye for a while.”

She had often dreamed her dream, even though she knew it was an impossible one, that she would like to see her laddie go right on through the Secondary School in the county town to the University.  She knew he had talents above the ordinary, and, besides, her soul rebelled at the thought of her boy having to endure the things that his father had to go through with.  She was an intelligent woman, and though she had had little education, she saw things differently from most of the women of her class.  She had character, and her influence was easily traced in her children, but more especially in Robert, who was always her favorite bairn.  She was wise, too, and had fathomed some secrets of psychology which many women with a university training had never even glimpsed.

She often maintained that her children’s minds were molded before she gave them birth, and that it depended upon the state of mind she was in herself during those nine months, as to what kind of soul her child would be born possessing.  It may have been merely a whim on her part, but she held tenaciously to her belief, acted in accordance with it, and no one could dissuade her from it.  Robert was her child of song, her sunny offspring, stung into revolt against tyranny of all kinds.  His soul, strong and true as steel, she knew would stand whatever test was put upon it.  Incorruptible and sincere, nothing could break him.  Generous and forgiving, he could never be bought.