ornie had turned tail and was fleeing
back to the safety of the lawful meadow.

"Hech, cratur! but ye maun be come o' fechtin' fowk!" said Donal,
regarding him with fresh admiration.

Gibbie laughed; but he had been sorely put to it, and the big drops
were coursing fast down his sweet face. Donal took the club from
him, and rushing at Hornie, belaboured her well, and drove her quite
to the other side of the field. He then returned and resumed his
book, while Gibbie again sat down near by, and watched both Donal
and his charge--the keeper of both herd and cattle. Surely Gibbie
had at last found his vocation on Daurside, with both man and beast
for his special care!

By and by Donal raised his head once more, but this time it was to
regard Gibbie and not the nowt. It had gradually sunk into him that
the appearance and character of the cratur were peculiar. He had
regarded him as a little tramp, whose people were not far off, and
who would soon get tired of herding and rejoin his companions; but
while he read, a strange feeling of the presence of the boy had, in
spite of the witchery of his book, been growing upon him. He seemed
to feel his eyes without seeing them; and when Gibbie rose to look
how the cattle were distributed, he became vaguely uneasy lest the
boy should be going away. For already he had begun to feel him a
humble kind of guardian angel. He had already that day, through
him, enjoyed a longer spell of his book, than any day since he had
been herd at the Mains of Glashruach. And now the desire had come
to regard him more closely.

For a minute or two he sat and gazed at him. Gibbie gazed at him in
return, and in his eyes the herd-boy looked the very type of power
and gentleness. How he admired even his suit of small-ribbed,
greenish-coloured corduroy, the ribs much rubbed and obliterated!
Then his jacket had round brass buttons! his trousers had patches
instead of holes at the knees! their short legs revealed warm
woollen stockings! and his shoes had their soles full of great
broad-headed iron tacks! while on his head he had a small round blue
bonnet with a red tuft! The little outcast, on the other hand, with
his loving face and pure clear eyes, bidding fair to be naked
altogether before long, woke in Donal a divine pity, a tenderness
like that nestling at the heart of womanhood. The neglected
creature could surely have no mother to shield him from frost and
wind and rain. But a st