the sweetest bite I ever got.  It was not nearly dark when I climbed a dyke to get into a sheltered nook and fell asleep.  Something soft and warm licking my face woke me.  It was a dog and it was broad day.  What are you doing here, laddie? said the dog’s master who was a young fellow, perhaps six or seven years older than myself.  His staff and the collie showed me he was a shepherd.  I told him who I was and where I was trying to go.  Collie again smelt at me and wagged his tail as if telling his master I was all right.  I went with the lad who said his name was Archie.  He led to where his sheep were and we sat down in the sunshine, for it was another warm day.  We talked and we were not ten minutes together when we liked each other.  He unwrapped from a cloth some bannocks and something like dried meat, which he said was braxie.

It was his noon-bite, but he told me to eat it for he said, we go back to the shelter to-day, and by we he meant collie.  He had been lonesome and was glad of company and we chattered on by the hour.  At noon, leaving collie in charge of the sheep, we went to the hut where he stayed and had something to eat.  He said his father was shepherd to a big farmer, who had sent him with two score of shearling ewes to get highland pasture.  We talked about everything we knew and tried to make each other laugh.  He told me about Wallace, and we gripped hands on saying we would fight for Scotland like him, and I told him about Glasgow, where he had not been.  A boy came with a little basket and a message.  The message was from his father, that he was to bring the sheep back early on Monday, and the basket was from his mother with food and a clean shirt for the Sabbath.  We slept on a sheepskin and wakened to hear the patter of rain.  After seeing his sheep and counting them, Archie said we must keep the Sabbath, and when we had settled in a dry corner of the hillside he heard me my questions.  I could not go further than Who is the Redeemer of God’s elect? but he could go to the end.  Then I repeated the three paraphrases my mother had taught me, but Archie had nearly all of them and several psalms.  A shepherd would be tired if he did not learn by heart, he said; some knit but I like reading best.  Then he took my mother’s bible and read about David and Goliath.  That over he started to sing.  Oh we had a fine time, and when a shower came Archie spread his plaid like a tent over the bushes and we sat under it.  He told me what he meant to do when he was a man.  He was going to Canada and get a farm, and send for the whole family.  As we snuggled in for the night, he told me he would not forget me and he was glad collie had nosed me out in the bushes.  If I found in the morning he was gone, I was to take what he left me to eat.  Sure enough I slept in; he was gone with the sheep.  I said a prayer for him and took the road.