Turkey while he thrashed, and thought
with myself that his face had grown much more solemn than it used to
be. But when he smiled, which was seldom, all the old merry sweetness
dawned again. This was the last long talk I ever had with him. The
next day I returned for the examination, was happy enough to gain a
small scholarship, and entered on my first winter at college.

My father wrote to me once a week or so, and occasionally I had a
letter with more ink than matter in it from one of my younger
brothers. Tom was now in Edinburgh, in a lawyer's office. I had no
correspondence with Turkey. Mr. Wilson wrote to me sometimes, and
along with good advice would occasionally send me some verses, but he
told me little or nothing of what was going on.

CHAPTER XXXVI

I Learn that I am not a Man

It was a Saturday morning, very early in April, when I climbed the
mail-coach to return to my home for the summer; for so the university
year is divided in Scotland. The sky was bright, with great fleecy
clouds sailing over it, from which now and then fell a shower in large
drops. The wind was keen, and I had to wrap myself well in my cloak.
But my heart was light, and full of the pleasure of ended and
successful labour, of home-going, and the signs which sun and sky gave
that the summer was at hand.

Five months had gone by since I last left home, and it had seemed such
an age to Davie, that he burst out crying when he saw me. My father
received me with a certain still tenderness, which seemed to grow upon
him. Kirsty followed Davie's example, and Allister, without saying
much, haunted me like my shadow. I saw nothing of Turkey that evening.

In the morning we went to church, of course, and I sat beside the
reclining stone warrior, from whose face age had nearly worn the
features away. I gazed at him all the time of the singing of the first
psalm, and there grew upon me a strange solemnity, a sense of the
passing away of earthly things, and a stronger conviction than I had
ever had of the need of something that could not pass. This feeling
lasted all the time of the service, and increased while I lingered in
the church almost alone until my father should come out of the vestry.

I stood in the passage, leaning against the tomb. A cloud came over
the sun, and the whole church grew dark as a December day--gloomy and
cheerless. I heard for some time, almost without hearing them, two old
women talking together close by me. T