all forms of the generous, and
shrunk instinctively from the base, but had not yet concentrated his
efforts towards becoming that which he acknowledged the best, so
that he was hardly yet on the straight path to the goal of such
oneness with good as alone is a man's peace. I mention these things
not with the intent of here developing the character of Donal, but
with the desire that my readers should know him such as he then was.

Gibbie and he seldom talked about Ginevra. She was generally
understood between them--only referred to upon needful occasion:
they had no right to talk about her, any more than to intrude on her
presence unseasonably.

Donal went to Mr. Sclater's church because Mr. Sclater required it,
in virtue of the position he assumed as his benefactor. Mr. Sclater
in the pulpit was a trial to Donal, but it consoled him to be near
Gibbie, also that he had found a seat in the opposite gallery,
whence he could see Ginevra when her place happened to be not far
from the door of one of the school-pews. He did not get much
benefit from Mr. Sclater's sermons: I confess he did not attend very
closely to his preaching--often directed against doctrinal errors of
which, except from himself, not one of his congregation had ever
heard, or was likely ever to hear. But I cannot say he would have
been better employed in listening, for there was generally something
going on in his mind that had to go on, and make way for more. I
have said generally, for I must except the times when his thoughts
turned upon the preacher himself, and took forms such as the
following. But it might be a lesson to some preachers to know that
a decent lad like Donal may be making some such verses about one of
them while he is preaching. I have known not a few humble men in
the pulpit of whom rather than write such a thing Donal would have
lost the writing hand.

'Twas a sair sair day 'twas my hap till
Come under yer soon', Mr. Sclater;
But things maun he putten a tap till,
An' sae maun ye, seener or later!

For to hear ye rowtin' an' scornin',
Is no to hark to the river;
An' to sit here till brak trowth's mornin',
Wad be to be lost for ever.

I confess I have taken a liberty, and changed one word for another
in the last line. He did not show these verses to Gibbie; or indeed
ever find much fault with the preacher in his hearing; for he knew
that while he was himself more open-minded to the nonsense of the
professional gentlem