Donal was now descending the heights of youth to walk along the king's highroad of manhood: happy he who, as his sun is going down behind the western, is himself ascending the eastern hill, returning through old age to the second and better childhood which shall not be taken from him! He who turns his back on the setting sun goes to meet the rising sun; he who loses his life shall find it.

Donal had lost his past--but not so as to be ashamed.

There are many ways of losing! His past had but crept, like the dead, back to God who gave it; in better shape it would be his by and by! Already he had begun to foreshadow this truth: God would keep it for him.
He had set out before the sun was up, for he would not be met by friends or acquaintances.

Avoiding the well-known farmhouses and occasional village, he took his way up the river, and about noon came to a hamlet where no one knew him--a cluster of straw-roofed cottages, low and white, with two little windows each.

He walked straight through it not meaning to stop; but, spying in front of the last cottage a rough stone seat under a low, widespreading elder tree, was tempted to sit down and rest a little.