46 FRESH FIELDS 



you will, he is still a pebble a hard spot in the 

 brick, but not essentially a part of it. 



Every close view I got of the Scotch character 

 confirmed my liking for it. A most pleasant epi- 

 sode happened to me down in Ayr. A young man 

 whom I stumbled on by chance in a little wood by 

 the Doon, during some conversation about the birds 

 that were singing around us, quoted my own name 

 to me. This led to an acquaintance with the family 

 and with the parish minister, and gave a genuine 

 human coloring to our brief sojourn in Burns 's 

 country. In Glasgow I had an inside view of a 

 household a little lower in the social scale, but high 

 in the scale of virtues and excellences. I climbed 

 up many winding stone stairs and found the family 

 in three or four rooms on the top floor: a father, 

 mother, three sons, two of them grown, and a 

 daughter, also grown. The father and the sons 

 worked in an iron foundry near by. I broke bread 

 with them around the table in the little cluttered 

 kitchen, and was spared apologies as much as if we 

 had been seated at a banquet in a baronial hall. A 

 Bible chapter was read after we were seated at 

 table, each member of the family reading a verse 

 alternately. When the meal was over, we went 

 into the next room, where all joined in singing 

 some Scotch songs, mainly from Burns. One of 

 the sons possessed the finest bass voice I had ever 

 listened to. Its power was simply tremendous, 

 well tempered with the Scotch raciness and tender- 

 ness, too. He had taken the first prize at a public 



