What wad he hae to du wi' horse flesh?"
Lizzy held her peace. Here was no room for argument. He had flung
the door of his conscience in the face of her who woke it. But it
was too late, for the word was in already. Oh! that false reverence
which men substitute for adoring obedience, and wherewith they
reprove the childlike spirit that does not know another kingdom
than that of God and that of Mammon! God never gave man thing to
do concerning which it were irreverent to ponder how the son of
God would have done it.
But, I say, the word was in, and, partly no doubt from its following
so close upon the dream the factor had had, was potent in its
operation. He fell a thinking, and a thinking more honestly than
he had thought for many a day. And presently it was revealed to
him that, if he were in the horse market wanting to buy, and a man
there who had to sell said to him--"He wadna du for you, sir;
ye wad be tired o' 'im in a week," he would never remark, "What a
fool the fellow is!" but--"Weel noo, I ca' that neibourly!" He
did not get quite so far just then as to see that every man to whom
he might want to sell a horse was as much his neighbour as his own
brother; nor, indeed, if he had got as far, would it have indicated
much progress in honesty, seeing he would at any time, when needful
and possible, have cheated that brother in the matter of a horse,
as certainly as he would a Patagonian or a Chinaman.
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