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.