Donal Grant | Page 4

power. To have shoes is a good thing; to be
able to walk without them is a better. But it was long since Donal had
walked barefoot, and he found his feet like his shoe, weaker in the sole
than was pleasant.
"It's time," he said to himself, when he found he was stepping gingerly,
"I ga'e my feet a turn at the auld accomplishment. It's a pity to grow nae
so fit for onything suner nor ye need. I wad like to lie doon at last wi'
hard soles!"
In every stream he came to he bathed his feet, and often on the way
rested them, when otherwise able enough to go on. He had no certain
goal, though he knew his direction, and was in no haste. He had
confidence in God and in his own powers as the gift of God, and knew
that wherever he went he needed not be hungry long, even should the

little money in his pocket be spent. It is better to trust in work than in
money: God never buys anything, and is for ever at work; but if any
one trust in work, he has to learn that he must trust in nothing but
strength--the self-existent, original strength only; and Donal Grant had
long begun to learn that. The man has begun to be strong who knows
that, separated from life essential, he is weakness itself, that, one with
his origin, he will be of strength inexhaustible. Donal was now
descending the heights of youth to walk along the king's highroad of
manhood: happy he who, as his sun is going down behind the western,
is himself ascending the eastern hill, returning through old age to the
second and better childhood which shall not be taken from him! He
who turns his back on the setting sun goes to meet the rising sun; he
who loses his life shall find it. Donal had lost his past--but not so as to
be ashamed. There are many ways of losing! His past had but crept,
like the dead, back to God who gave it; in better shape it would be his
by and by! Already he had begun to foreshadow this truth: God would
keep it for him.
He had set out before the sun was up, for he would not be met by
friends or acquaintances. Avoiding the well-known farmhouses and
occasional village, he took his way up the river, and about noon came
to a hamlet where no one knew him--a cluster of straw-roofed cottages,
low and white, with two little windows each. He walked straight
through it not meaning to stop; but, spying in front of the last cottage a
rough stone seat under a low, widespreading elder tree, was tempted to
sit down and rest a little. The day was now hot, and the shadow of the
tree inviting.
He had but seated himself when a woman came to the door of the
cottage, looked at him for a moment, and probably thinking him, from
his bare feet, poorer than he was, said--
"Wad ye like a drink?"
"Ay, wad I," answered Donal, "--a drink o' watter, gien ye please."
"What for no milk?" asked the woman.

"'Cause I'm able to pey for 't," answered Donal.
"I want nae peyment," she rejoined, perceiving his drift as little as
probably my reader.
"An' I want nae milk," returned Donal.
"Weel, ye may pey for 't gien ye like," she rejoined.
"But I dinna like," replied Donal.
"Weel, ye're a some queer customer!" she remarked.
"I thank ye, but I'm nae customer, 'cep' for a drink o' watter," he
persisted, looking in her face with a smile; "an' watter has aye been
grâtis sin' the days o' Adam--'cep' maybe i' toons i' the het pairts o' the
warl'."
The woman turned into the cottage, and came out again presently with
a delft basin, holding about a pint, full of milk, yellow and rich.
"There!" she said; "drink an' be thankfu'."
"I'll be thankfu' ohn drunken," said Donal. "I thank ye wi' a' my heart.
But I canna bide to tak for naething what I can pey for, an' I dinna like
to lay oot my siller upon a luxury I can weel eneuch du wantin', for I
haena muckle. I wadna be shabby nor yet greedy."
"Drink for the love o' God," said the woman.
Donal took the bowl from her hand, and drank till all was gone.
"Wull ye hae a drap mair?" she asked.
"Na, no a drap," answered Donal. "I'll gang i' the stren'th o' that ye hae
gi'en me--maybe no jist forty days, gudewife, but mair nor forty
minutes, an' that's a gude pairt o' a day. I thank ye hertily. Yon was the
milk o' human kin'ness,