their iniquities. They carried themselves so exceeding wickedly--but
more, as I think, that we, who desired not their company, might take
note of them. For at least three of them were but sullen, loutish boys,
yet the others led them on, and praised them when they imitated their
blasphemies and sculduddery.

At last about eight o'clock in the evening we came to Rotterdam, where
we quartered with a good merchant, Mr. Donaldson, and in the morning we
went to a Mr. Hay's, where from that good man (whom may God preserve) we
met with inexpressible kindness.

Thence we went to Groningen, where many of the Covenant already were. To
be brief--that part of my life for the present not coming into the
history--I spent four years there, the most of it with a young man named
James Renwick, a good student, and one very full of great intents which
were to make Scotland strong against the House of Stuart. He came from
Minnyhive, a village on the borders of Galloway and Dumfries, and was a
very decent lad--though apt, before he learned modesty on the moors, to
take too much upon him. We were finally summoned home by a letter from
the United Societies, for they had made me a covenanted member of
standing because of Ayrsmoss, and the carrying of the banner at
Sanquhar.

While at Groningen I got a great deal of civility because of Sandy, my
brother, whose name took me everywhere. But I think that, in time, I
also won some love and liking on my own account. And while I was away, I
got many letters from Maisie Lennox, chiefly in the name of my mother,
who was not good at writing; for her father, though a lord of session,
would not have his daughters taught overly much, lest it made them vain
and neglectful of those things which are a woman's work, and ought to be
her pleasure so long as the world lasts.

But though I went to the University, I could not bring myself to think
that I had any call to the ministry. I went, therefore, for the name of
it, to the study of the law, but read instead many and divers books. For
the study of the law is in itself so dreary, that all other literature
is but entertainment by comparison. So that, one book being easy to
substitute for another, I got through a vast deal of excellent
literature while I studied law at the University of Groningen. So did
also, even as I, all the students of law whom I knew in Holland and
elsewhere, for that is their custom.

But when at last I was called home, I received a