He was stripped to the waist, fresh from a struggle with the stubborn iron, and his body was drenched and shining with sweat. His arms and shoulders were round and firm; but there was no abnormal development, or sign of a bound muscle, and he stood with an ease that proved good legs under him, though hidden by the thick corduroys. His hair was light and curly, and his face was smooth and clean cut.
Many bigger and some stronger men have I seen, but none whose proportions were so perfect.
Among the few remembrances of my books is that dialogue of Plato which describes the sensations of Socrates at first seeing the beautiful youth, Charmides. Well (may Socrates forgive me the comparison), I had the same feeling when I first looked at Angus MacLeod on that June day, back in the "sixties." Barring the difference in costume, and the grime which a little water would remove, I believe they were alike as two peas.
The lad (he looked scarcely twenty years of age for all his development) stood a moment or two in the doorway, watching with an amused smile a big fellow put the shot a scant twenty feet, after an enormous amount of effort. Then he was noticed by some one who called out, "Come here, Mac, you porridge-eater, and show them how to do it."
At this he laughed, shook his head, and would not budge. But the call was taken up by others, with a lot of chaff, like, "The lad's bashful," "A Scotch puddler's always shy except on pay-day," and a plenty more like it.
At last a young fellow in a blue jersey, and an old chap, the color and material of whose shirt were alike doubtful, took each an arm, and led him, holding back a bit and laughing, to the circle within which the shot lay.
He picked it up, dropped it while he drew his narrow belt a hole or two tighter, and then picked it up again. He rolled it a bit in his hand, raised it two or three times from his shoulder high above his head, balanced a moment on his right leg, with the left lifted, and then, with that easy wrist and hand motion, and that little "flick" at the end, he sent the old cannon-ball a good two yards farther than any who had tried.
It was a right good "put," though not a phenomenal one, and hardly a fault could I find with the style, barring a little failure to get the full turn of the body.
Almost as soon as the shot landed, and before the mingled applause and good-natured chaffing were over, he left them with a parting joke, and disappeared through the door, going back to his waiting furnace. This was my first sight of Angus MacLeod.
I looked him up a few days later, got acquainted easily, and in fact hit it off right well with him from the beginning. I was just enough older for him to look up to me a bit in other matters beside athletics, and on this last subject he gave me credit for possessing all the knowledge in the market. I learned that he had been in this country some four years, that he lived with an uncle, one of the pillars of a Scotch Presbyterian church, and that Angus was himself a churchman, devout and regular in his habits.