But the wide difference of their habits and education often occasioned a great discrepancy in their respective deductions from admitted premises.
Major Melville had been versed in camps and cities; he was vigilant by profession, and cautious from experience; had met with much evil in the world, and therefore, though himself an upright magistrate and an honourable man, his opinions of others were always strict, and sometimes unjustly severe.

Mr.Morton, on the contrary, had passed from the literary pursuits of a college, where he was beloved by his companions, and respected by his teachers, to the ease and simplicity of his present charge, where his opportunities of witnessing evil were few, and never dwelt upon but in order to encourage repentance and amendment; and where the love and respect of his parishioners repaid his affectionate zeal in their behalf, by endeavouring to disguise from him what they knew would give him the most acute pain, namely, their own occasional transgressions of the duties which it was the business of his life to recommend.

Thus it was a common saying in the neighbourhood (though both wore popular characters), that the laird knew only the ill in the parish, and the minister only the good.
A love of letters, though kept in subordination to his clerical studies and duties, also distinguished the pastor of Cairnvreckan, and had tinged his mind in earlier days with a slight feeling of romance, which no after incidents of real life had entirely dissipated.

The early loss of an amiable young woman, whom he had married for love, and who was quickly followed to the grave by an only child, had also served, even after the lapse of many years, to soften a disposition naturally mild and contemplative.

His feelings on the present occasion were therefore likely to differ from those of the severe disciplinarian, strict magistrate, and distrustful man of the world.
When the servants had withdrawn, the silence of both parties continued, until Major Melville, filling his glass, and pushing the bottle to Mr.
Morton, commenced.