“Are ye?” said the shepherd, evidently bewildered still, so that he forgot his natural awe for his feudal superior.  “Are ye the countess’s bairn, that’s just the age o’ our Dougal?  Dougal’s ane o’ the gamekeepers, ye ken—­sic a braw fellow—­sax feet three.  Ye’ll hae seen him, Maybe?”

“No, but I should like to see him.  And yourself—­are you a tenant of mine, and what did you want with me?”

Encouraged by the kindly voice, and his own self-interest becoming prominent once more, old Dougal told his tale—­not an uncommon one —­of sheep lost on the hill-side, and one misfortune following another, until a large family, children and orphan grandchildren, were driven at last to want the “sup o’ parritch” for daily food, sinking to such depths of poverty as the earl in secluded life had never even heard of.  And yet the proud old fellow asked nothing except the remission of one year’s rent, after having paid rent honestly for half a lifetime.  That stolid, silent endurance, which makes a Scotch beggar of any sort about the last thing you ever meet with in Scotland, supported him to the very end.

The earl was deeply touched.  As a matter of course, he promised all that was desired of him, and sent the old shepherd away happy; but long after Dougal’s departure he sat thoughtful and grave.

“Can such things be, Helen, and I never heard of them?  Are some of my people—­they are my people, since the land belongs to me—­as terribly poor as that man?”

“Ay, very many, though papa looks after them as much as he can.  Dougal is out of his parish, or he would have know him.  Papa knows every body, and takes care of every body, as far as possible.”

“So ought I—­or I must do it when I am older,” said the earl, thoughtfully.

“There will be no difficulty about that when you come of age and enter on your property.”

“Is it a very large property?  For I never heard or inquired.”

“Very large.”

“Show me its boundary; there is the map.”

Helen took it down and drew with a pencil the limits of the Cairnforth estates.  They extended along the whole peninsula, and far up into the main land.

“There, Lord Cairnforth, every bit of this is yours.”

“To do exactly what I like with?”

“Certainly.”

“Helen, it is an awfully serious thing.”

Helen was silent.

“How strange!” He continued, after a pause.  “And this was really all mine from the very hour of my birth?”

“Yes.”

“And when I come of age I shall have to take my property into my own hands, and manage it just as I choose, or as I can?”

“Of course you will; and I think you can do it, if you try.”

For it was not the first time that Helen had pondered over these things, since, being neither learned nor poetical, worldly-minded nor selfish, in her silent hours her mind generally wandered to the practical concerns of other people, and especially of those she loved.