It is a thousand pities if in this brief chronicle Walter should be represented as a good boy.  He was seldom so called by the authorities about Drumquhat.  There he was usually referred to as “that loon,” “the hyule” “Wattie, ye mischeevious boy.”  For he was a stirring lad, and his restlessness frequently brought him into trouble.  He remembers his mother’s Bible lessons on the green turn of the loaning by the road, and he is of opinion now that they did him a great deal of good.  It is not for an outside historian to contradict him; but it is certain that his mother had to exercise a good deal of patience to induce him to give due attention, and a species of suasion that could hardly be called moral to make him learn his verses and his psalm.

Indeed, to bribe the boy with the promise of a book was the only way of inspiring in him the love of scriptural learning.  There was a book-packman who came from Balmathrapple once a month, and by the promise of a new missionary map of the world (with the Protestants in red, floating like cream on the top, and the pagans sunk in hopeless black at the bottom) Wattie could be induced to learn nearly anything.  Walter was, however, of opinion that the map was a most imperfect production.  He thought that the portion of the world occupied by the Cameronians ought to have been much more prominently charted.  This omission he blamed on Ned Kenna the bookman, who was a U.P.

Walter looked for the time when all the world, from great blank Australia to the upper Icy Pole, should become Cameronian.  He anticipated an era when the black savages would have to quit eating one another and learn the Shorter Catechism.  He chuckled when he thought of them attacking Effectual Calling.

But he knew his duty to his fellows very well, and he did it to the best of his ability.  It was, when he met a Free Kirk or Established boy, to throw a stone at him; or alternatively, if the heathen chanced to be a girl, to put out his tongue at her.  This he did, not from any special sense of superiority, but for the good of their souls.

When Walter awoke, the sun had long been up, and already all sounds of labour, usually so loud, were hushed about the farm.  There was a breathless silence, and the boy knew even in his sleep that it was the Sabbath morning.  He arose, and unassisted arrayed himself for the day.  Then he stole forth, hoping that he would get his porridge before the “buik” came on.  Through the little end window he could see his grandfather moving up and down outside, leaning on his staff—­his tall, stooped figure very clear against the background of beeches.  As he went he looked upward often in self-communion, and sometimes groaned aloud in the instancy of his unspoken prayer.  His brow rose like the wall of a fortress.  A stray white lock on his bare head stirred in the crisp air.