The
very pulpit floor gaed down wi' me, the kirk wa's gaed round about, and
I thought the very crown o' my head wad pitch on the top o' the
precentor. The very een o' the multitude soomed round me like
fishes!--an' oh, woman! are ye dumb? will ye torment me mair? can ye no
speak, mother?" But he spoke to one who never spoke again. Her reason
departed, and her speech failed, but grief remained. She had lived upon
one hope, and that hope was destroyed. Her round ruddy cheeks and portly
form wasted away, and within a few weeks the neighbours, who performed
the last office of humanity, declared that a thinner corpse was never
wrapt in a winding sheet than Mrs. Jeffrey. Time soothed, but did not
heal the sorrows, the shame, and the disappointment of the son. He sank
into a village teacher, and often, in the midst of his little school, he
would quote his first, his only text--imagine the children to be his
congregation--attempt to proceed--gaze wildly round for a moment, and
sit down and weep. Through these aberrations his school dwindled into
nothingness, and poverty increased his delirium. Once, in the midst of
the remaining few, he gave forth the fatal text.
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