n that day. To the boy the Sabbath light
seemed brighter. The necessary duties were earlier gone about, in order
that perfect quiet might surround the farm during all the hours of the
day. As Walter is of opinion that his youthful Sabbaths were so
important, it may be well to describe one of them accurately. It will
then be obvious that his memory has been playing him tricks, and that he
has remembered only those parts of it which tell somewhat to his
credit--a common eccentricity of memories.

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 p