can be understood. That only which
has absolute reason in it can be understood of man. There is a
bewilderment about the very nature of evil which only he who made us
capable of evil that we might be good, can comprehend.

CHAPTER XLII.

DONAL'S LODGING.

Donal had not accompanied Mr. Sclater and his ward, as he generally
styled him, to the city, but continued at the Mains until another
herd-boy should be found to take his place. All were sorry to part
with him, but no one desired to stand in the way of his good fortune
by claiming his service to the end of his half-year. It was about a
fortnight after Gibbie's departure when he found himself free. His
last night he spent with his parents on Glashgar, and the next
morning set out in the moonlight to join the coach, with some cakes
and a bit of fresh butter tied up in a cotton handkerchief. He wept
at leaving them, nor was too much excited with the prospect before
him to lay up his mother's parting words in his heart. For it is
not every son that will not learn of his mother. He who will not
goes to the school of Gideon. Those last words of Janet to her
Donal were, "Noo, min' yer no a win'le strae (a straw dried on its
root), but a growin' stalk 'at maun luik till 'ts corn."

When he reached the spot appointed, there already was the cart from
the Mains, with his kist containing all his earthly possessions.
They did not half fill it, and would have tumbled about in the
great chest, had not the bounty of Mistress Jean complemented its
space with provision--a cheese, a bag of oatmeal, some oatcakes, and
a pound or two of the best butter in the world; for now that he was
leaving them, a herd-boy no more, but a colliginer, and going to be
a gentleman, it was right to be liberal. The box, whose ponderosity
was unintelligible to its owner, having been hoisted, amid the
smiles of the passengers, to the mid region of the roof of the
coach, Donal clambered after it, and took, for the first time in his
life, his place behind four horses--to go softly rushing through the
air towards endless liberty. It was to the young poet an hour of
glorious birth--in which there seemed nothing too strange, nothing
but what should have come. I fancy, when they die, many will find
themselves more at home than ever they were in this world. But
Donal is not the subject of my story, and I must not spend upon him.
I will only say that his feelings on this grand occasion were th