feet, on lifting the
cutter, he found a runner had been wrenched off, and there he was
helpless. Seeing the lights of our house, he shouted, and, for a long
time, he thought in vain. While he was speaking, my memory was groping
to place a voice that seemed an echo of one I had heard in the past. I
looked at the face, but in the firm-set features that told of wrestling
with the world, I found no aid. It was not until the house-colley went
up to sniff at him and he stooped to pat its head that it flashed on me
the stranger was the shepherd-lad who had befriended me in my weary
tramp across Ayrshire. Facing him, I said, 'Is not your name Archie?'
'It is,' he replied, looking surprised. 'And do you not remember the
ragged boy your dog found under a bush, how you shared your bite with
him; how we sat under your plaid and read the bible and heard each other
the questions?' As I spoke I could tell by his face his memory too was
at work. 'Yes, yes,' he exclaimed, 'it all comes back to me, and you are
curly-headed Gordon Sellar.' Had we been of any other race the right
thing to do would have been to have fallen into each other arms, but
seeing we were undemonstrative Scots we gripped hands though I could not
hold back the tears of gratitude on seeing the man who had been so kind
to me. His coming was no damper to the evening's joy. He made himself at
home at once, and before he was ten minutes among us the children were
clambering over him, for he had joined them in their play. He was the
same free-hearted, easily-pleased lad I had known. When, late in the
evening, I took him to his room, we had a long talk, and the fire of
friendship kindled on the Ayrshire braeside burned again. We had
breakfast together long before daylight, for he was anxious to get home.
It had been settled Allan would lend his team and long sleigh, and that
I drive. The sound of sleighbells brought us to our feet, and at the
door was the sleigh with the broken cutter piled into it with all the
parcels that had been picked out of the snow, and tied to the seat was
Archie's mare. I hesitated leaving Alice on such a day, but she insisted
I must go with my friend. It was not a long drive but it was a slow one.
I turned back into Yonge street, where there would be a track broken,
and kept on it until we reached the corner to turn westward. We halted
an hour at the corner-tavern to feed and rest the horses, which could
not have made the headway they were making h