His fellow-students seemed now a very honest set of men, as indeed they were, although a trifle limited in horizon, and he hoped that one of the "fruits" was "satisfied with his Sunday's work," which shows that as often as a man of twenty-one gets out of touch with reality, he ought straightway to sit down and write to his mother.

Carmichael indeed told me one evening at the Cottage that he never had any mystical call to the ministry, but only had entered the Divinity Hall instead of going to Oxford because his mother had this for her heart's desire, and he loved her.

As a layman it perhaps did not become me to judge mysteries, but I dared to say that any man might well be guided by his mother in religion, and that the closer he kept to her memory the better he would do his work.

After which both of us smoked furiously, and Carmichael, two minutes later, was moved to remark that some Turkish I had then was enough to lure a man up Glen Urtach in the month of December.
The young minister was stirred on the way to Kilbogie, and began to dream dreams in the twilight.

Love had come suddenly to him, and after an unexpected fashion.