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Book, page 11 / 547 He drew from his pocket a small thick volume he had brought as the companion of his journey, and read as he ate. His seat was on the last slope of a grassy hill, where many huge stones rose out of the grass. A few yards beneath was a country road, and on the other side of the road a small stream, in which the brook that ran swiftly past, almost within reach of his hand, eagerly lost itself. On the further bank of the stream, perfuming the air, grew many bushes of meadow-sweet, or queen-of-the-meadow, as it is called in Scotland; and beyond lay a lovely stretch of nearly level pasture. Farther eastward all was a plain, full of farms. Behind him rose the hill, shutting out his past; before him lay the plain, open to his eyes and feet. God had walled up his past, and was disclosing his future. When he had eaten his dinner, its dryness forgotten in the condiment his book supplied, he rose, and taking his cap from his head, filled it from the stream, and drank heartily; then emptied it, shook the last drops from it, and put it again upon his head. "Ho, ho, young man!" cried a voice. Donal looked, and saw a man in the garb of a clergyman regarding him from the road, and wiping his face with his sleeve. "You should mind," he continued, "how you scatter your favours." "I beg your pardon, sir," said Donal, taking off his cap again; "I hadna a notion there was leevin' cratur near me." "It's a fine day!" said the minister. "It is that, sir!" answered Donal. "Which way are you going?" asked the minister, adding, as if in apology for his seeming curiosity, "--You're a scholar, I see!"--with a glance towards the book he had left open on his stone. "Nae sae muckle as I wad fain be, sir," answered Donal--then called to mind a resolve he had made to speak English for the future.
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