just enough for the bare necessities of
life. My father, as I told you, was a shepherd--a strong, fine-looking
man over six feet in height, and as broad-chested as a Hercules--he
herded sheep on the mountains for a Glasgow dealer, as low-down a rascal
as ever lived, a man who, so far as race and lineage went, wasn't fit to
scrape mud off my father's boots. But we often see gentlemen of birth
obliged to work for knaves of cash. That was the way it was with my
father. As soon as I was old enough--about ten,--I helped him in his
work--I used to tramp backwards and forwards to school in the nearest
village, but after school hours I got an evening job of a shilling a
week for bringing home eight Highland bull-heifers from pasture. The man
who owned them valued them highly, but was afraid of them--wouldn't go
near them for his life--and before I'd been with them a fortnight they
all knew me. I was only a wee laddie, but they answered to my call like
friendly dogs rather than the great powerful splendid beasts they were,
with their rough coats shining like floss silk in the sunset, when I
went to drive them home, singing as I came. And my father said to me one
night--'Laddie, tell me the truth--are ye ever scared at the bulls!'
'No, father!' said I--'It's a bonnie boy I am to the bulls!' And he
laughed--by Jove!--how he laughed! 'Ye're a wee raskell!' he said--'An'
as full o' conceit as an egg's full o' meat!' I expect that was true
too, for I always thought well of myself. You see, if I hadn't thought
well of myself, no one would ever have thought well of _me_!"

"There's something in that!" said Helmsley, the smile still lingering in
his eyes--"Courage and self-reliance have often conquered more than
eight bulls!"

"Oh, I don't call it either courage or self-reliance--it was just that
I thought myself of too much importance to be hurt by bulls or anything
else,"--and Angus laughed,--then with a sudden knitting of his brows as
though his thoughts were making hard knots in his brain, he added--"Even
as a laddie I had an idea--and I have it now--that there was something
in me which God had put there for a purpose of His own,--something that
he would not and _could_ not destroy till His purpose had been
fulfilled!"

Mary stopped working and looked at him earnestly. Her breath came and
went quickly--her eyes shone dewily like stars in a summer haze,--she
was deeply interested.

"That was--and _is_--a conceited notion, of cour