, indeed, the dew
falling from the sacred stones and the pity of God for fatherless
innocents had christened him. In this world, at least, his name was
written in no book of life, for he had no name.

He grew to be a little lithe lad. Then it was that in every pickle of
mischief where a little lad could be this elf-child, with his black eyes
and curly auburn hair, was to be found. So maddening indeed were his
naughty tricks that the townspeople spoke not so often of beating him,
as they would have beaten a human child, but of wringing his neck like a
young thing that had no right to live. Yet it was more often in word
than in deed that punishment of any sort was inflicted, for the
preliminary stage was perforce, 'first catch your boy,' and that was far
from easy.

Even when the catching was accomplished the beating did not always come.
One day the minister of the Kirk looked out upon his glebe. His
favourite cow, with a bridle in her mouth, was being galloped at
greatest speed around the field, Betty's lad standing tip-toe upon her
back. The minister, with the agility which unbounded wrath gave him,
caught the boy' and swung his cane.

'I am going to thrash you,' said he.

'Ay, ye maun do that.' The small face was drawn to the aspect of a grave
judge--'ye maun do that; it's yer juty.'

The minister, who had looked upon his intention rather in the light of
natural impulse, felt the less inclination for the task. 'Are you not
afraid of being beaten?' he asked.

'Aweel'--an air of profound reflection--'I'm thinking I can even it ony
day wi' ridin' on a coo's back when she'll rin like yon.'

The sunlight of habitual benevolence began to break through the cloud of
wrath upon the good minister's face. 'If I let you off, laddie, what
will you do for me in return?'

An answering gleam of generosity broke upon the sage face of the child.
'I'll fair teach ye how to dae't ye'sel'.'

The lad grew apace. The neighbours said that he showed 'a caring' for
his mother, but no one held toward him a helping hand. They were so sure
that no good could come of him or of her. The mother had taken to
drink, and one day it was found that the lad was gone. Just as he had
often slipped from the grasp of one or other of the angry townsmen,
dodged, darted, and disappeared for the moment, so now it seemed that he
had slipped from the grasp of the town, run quickly and disappeared. No
one knew why he had gone, or whither, or to what end.