"Which way are you going?" asked the minister, adding, as if in
apology for his seeming curiosity, "--You're a scholar, I
see!"--with a glance towards the book he had left open on his stone.

"Nae sae muckle as I wad fain be, sir," answered Donal--then called
to mind a resolve he had made to speak English for the future.

"A modest youth, I see!" returned the clergyman; but Donal hardly
liked the tone in which he said it.

"That depends on what you mean by a scholar," he said.

"Oh!" answered the minister, not thinking much about his reply, but
in a bantering humour willing to draw the lad out, "the learned man
modestly calls himself a scholar."

"Then there was no modesty in saying I was not so much of a scholar
as I should like to be; every scholar would say the same."

"A very good answer!" said the clergyman patronizingly, "You'll be a
learned man some day!" And he smiled as he said it.

"When would you call a man learned?" asked Donal.

"That is hard to determine, seeing those that claim to be contradict
each other so."

"What good then can there be in wanting to be learned?"