companion he ever remembered.

Before he left, Master Burnet examined me on my progress in polite learning, and finding me well advanced, he would have it that I should be sent forthwith to Glasgow College. He exacted a promise from my father to see to this, and left behind him, when he departed, letters of introduction to many of the folk there, for he himself had, at one time, been professor of divinity in the place. As for myself, I was nothing loth to go, and see places beyond Tweeddale and add to my stock of learning; for about this time a great enthusiasm for letters had seized me (which I suppose happens at some time or other to most men), and I conceived my proper vocation in life to be that of the scholar. I have found in an old manuscript book a list of the titles of imaginary works, editions, poems, treatises, all with my unworthy name subscribed as the author. So it was settled that I should ride to Glasgow and take lodgings in the town for the sake of the college classes.

I set out one November morning, riding Maisie alone, for no student was allowed to have a servant, nor any one below the degree of Master of Arts. The air was keen and frosty, and I rode in high fettle by the towns of Biggar and Lanark to the valley of the Clyde. I lay all night at Crossford in the house of a distant relative. Thence the next day I rode to Hamilton and in the evening came to the bridge of the Clyde at Glasgow. Then I presented myself to the Principal and Regents of the college and was duly admitted, putting on the red gown, the badge of the student class, than which I believe there is no more hideous habiliment.

The college in those days was poor enough, having been well-nigh ruined by the extortions of Lord Middleton and his drunken crew; and it had not yet benefited by the rich donations of the Reverend Zachary Boyd of the Barony Kirk. Still, the standard of learning in the place was extraordinarily high, especially in dialectic and philosophy—a standard which had been set by the famous Andrew Melville when he was a professor in the place. I have heard disputations there in the evenings between the schoolmen and the new philosophers, the like of which could scarcely be got from the length and breadth of the land.

Across the High Street were the college gardens and green pleasant orchards where the professors were wont to walk and the scholars to have their games. Through the middle ran the clear Molendinar Burn, so called by the old Romans, and here I loved to watch the trout and young salmon leaping. There was a severe rule against scholars fishing in 

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