did not rise till the morning fully broke. At last he lay down on
the bed, after looking long at the ridge of pines which stood
sharp up against the morning sky, behind which Craig Ronald lay.
Then the underlying pang, which he had been crushing down by the
night's work among the Hebrew roots, came triumphantly to the
surface. He must leave the manse of Dullarg, and with it that
solitary white farmhouse on the braeface, the orchard at the back
of it, and the rose-clambered gable from which a dear window
looked down the valley of the Grannoch, and up to the heathery
brow of the Crae Hill.

So, unrefreshed, yet unconscious of the need of any refreshment,
Ralph Peden rose and took his place at the manse table.

"I saw your candle late yestreen," said the minister, pausing to
look at the young man over the wooden platter of porridge which
formed the frugal and sufficient breakfast of the two.

Porridge for breakfast and porridge for supper are the cure-alls
of the true Galloway man. It is not every Scot who stands through
all temptation so square in the right way as morning and night to
confine himself to these; but he who does so shall have his reward
in a rare sanity of judgment and lightness of spirit, and a
capacity for work unknown to countrymen of less Spartan habit.

So Ralph answered, looking over his own "cogfu' o' brose" as Manse
Bell called them, "I was reading the book of Joel for the second
time."

"Then you have," said the minister, "finished your studies in the