cutting than Uncle Rob's
mockery. Because, you see, my father knew. That is, he knew my
scholarship. What he did not know was how much of my grandmother's
spirit there was in me, and how I could keep working on and on if I had
the chance.

"You have thought of this long?" he asked.

"No, father!"

"Ah, well, what put it into your head?" he asked kindly.

This I could hardly tell him without entering into my furious foolish
jealousy of Uncle Rob, his waiting at the mill, and our exchange of
words. So I only said, "It just came to me that I would like to get
learning, father!"

"Ah, yes," he meditated, "that is mostly the way. It is like heavenly
grace. It comes to a man when he least expects it--the desire for
learning. We seek it diligently with tears. It comes not. We wake in the
morning and lo! it is there!"

It is characteristic of my father that even then he did not concern
himself about ways and means. For at the colleges of our land are
"bursaries" provided by pious patrons, once poor themselves, and often
with a thirst for knowledge unquenched--boys put too early to the bench
or the counter. Now my father had the way of winning these for his
pupils. He did not teach them directly how to gain them, but he supplied
the inspiration.

"Read much and well. Get the spirit. Learn the grammar, certainly. But
read Latin--till you can speak Latin, think Latin. It is more difficult
to think Greek. Our stiff-necked, stubborn Lowland nature, produce of
half-a-score of conquering nations, has not the right suppleness. But if
there is any poetry in you, it will find you out when you read
Euripides."

So though certainly I never got so far--the verbs irregular giving me a
distaste for the business--at least I fell into line, and in due
time--but there I am anticipating. I am writing of the day, the
wonderful day when the sharp spur of Uncle Rob's reproach entered into
my soul and I resolved to be--I hardly knew what. A band of little boys,
all eager to see the pirn-mill in the Marnhoul wood, volunteered to
accompany Louis home. They went on ahead, gambolling and shouting. Agnes
Anne would have come also, but I suggested to her that she had better
stay and help her mother.

She gave me one look--not by any means of anger. Rather if Agnes Anne
had ever permitted herself to make fun of me, I should have set it down
to that. But I knew well that could not be. She stayed at home,
contentedly enough, however.

I went h