"And why came you here, Angus?"
"I cam' here," he answered, "to better masel'. I heard tell o' Canada sin' I was a bairn, and they a' spak' it fair for a land whaur an honest man micht mak' an honest leevin'—and mair tae," he added, true to the Scotch afterthought of an extra.
"And what line do you propose to follow? What work do you intend to do?"
"Ilka line that's straight, an' ony wark that willna soil the soul even gin it may soil the hands," he answered quickly.
My soul went out to the lad, for I saw that his heart's roots were deep in the best heart-soil the world hath known, and that the Atlantic's billows had not quenched the light of his mother's cottage fire.
"Your father is dead, is he, Angus?" was the next step in my examination for discovery, as the lawyers say.
"No, he's no' deid, he's alive," replied the lad, with the exactitude which marks his race; "but I dinna care to speak aboot him."
"Very well, very well, boy," I rejoined hastily; "spends his time and his money and your mother's money, when he can get it, at the Red Cow, or the Cock and Hens, a drunken wastrel and cruel too; for I have been enough in Scotland to know that such hens lay deadly eggs and such red cows' milk is red with blood." All this latter part, of course, I said to myself, but no word of it to the lad before me, for no honest youth can bear any lips to miscall his father save his own.
"You will come to the manse with us and stay the night; it is too late to seek other lodging now."
"Thank ye kindly, sir, but I hae a wee pickle siller in my pocket," he replied, with modest independence. I verily believe that in heaven all Scotsmen (and even Scotch Freemasons) will be found wi' a wee pickle siller in their pockets when they receive that great degree.