And yet all the while youth was working in me like yeast, so that a spring day or a west wind would make me forget my troubles and thirst to be about a kindlier business than skulking in a moorland dwelling.
My mother besought me to leave her.

"What," she would say, "has young blood to do with this bickering of kirks and old wives' lamentations?
You have to learn and see and do, Andrew.

And it's time you were beginning." But I would not listen to her, till by the mercy of God we got my father safely forth of Scotland, and heard that he was dwelling snugly at Leyden in as great patience as his nature allowed.

Thereupon I bethought me of my neglected colleging, and, leaving my books and plenishing to come by the Lanark carrier, set out on foot for Edinburgh.
The distance is only a day's walk for an active man, but I started late, and purposed to sleep the night at a cousin's house by Kirknewton.

Often in bright summer days I had travelled the road, when the moors lay yellow in the sun and larks made a cheerful chorus.