There were no leaves yet on the few trees and hedges, but preparations had long been made, and the sap was now rising in their many stems, like the mercury in all the thermometers.

Up also rose the larks, joy fluttering their wings, and quivering their throats.

They always know when the time to praise God is come, for it is when they begin to feel happy: more cannot be expected of them.

And are they not therein already on the level of most of us Christians who in this mood and that praise God?
And indeed are not the birds and the rest of the creatures Christians in the same way as the vast mass of those that call themselves such?
Do they not belong to the creation groaning after a redemption they do not know?
Men and women groan in misery from not being yet the sons and daughters of God, who regard nothing else as redemption, but the getting of their own way, which the devil only would care to give them.
As they went, the laird told Cosmo what was taking him to the village, and the boy walked by his father's side as in a fairy tale; for had they not with them a strange thing that might prove the talismanic opener of many doors to treasure-caves?
They went straight to the shop, if shop it could be called, of Jeames Merson, the watchmaker of the village.

There all its little ornamental business was done--a silver spoon might be engraved, a new pin put to a brooch, a wedding ring of sterling gold purchased, or a pair of earings of lovely glass, representing amethyst or topaz.