Livingstone was a born naturalist; and despite his father’s old-fashioned prejudices, he made himself a scientist at a very early age, searching old quarries for the shells in the carboniferous limestone, “scouring Clyde-side for simples,” and arranging the flora of the district in botanical order. These expeditions were often very prolonged, and involved the endurance of fatigue and hunger; but the lad could not be discouraged. Unconsciously he was bracing himself physically for the toils and tasks of after years. There is a fine story about the revenge he took upon his native African escort, on one occasion, who had been misguided enough to talk disrespectfully about his slim figure and shortness of stature. Thereupon, Livingstone took them along for two or three days at the top of their speed till they cried out for mercy! He had not scoured Clyde-side for simples for nothing. His fearlessness is well illustrated in his daring and reckless exploit of climbing the ruins of Bothwell Castle, so that he might carve his name higher than any other boy had carved his. There, too, was the childlike ambition, which remained with him to the end, to do something which nobody else could surpass. “No one,” he wrote at the very end of his life, on his last expedition, “will cut me out after this exploration is accomplished.” Then he adds finely, “and may the good Lord of all help me to show myself one of his stout-hearted servants, an honour to my children, and perhaps to my country and race.” The story of Livingstone is told there: it is the story of one of the good Lord’s stout-hearted servants. All the drudgery and hardship of his lot went to make him the man he was. The days of his boyhood were “the good old days”--the days when children of ten years old were sent to work in the factories; and David went with the rest. No eight hours’ day his! No humane legislature thought it wise and well to forbid or curtail child labour. From six o’clock in the morning till eight o’clock at night he worked as a piecer; and all the world knows how he used to place the book he was studying on a portion of the spinning-jenny, and snatch a sentence or two as he passed at his work. He tells us he thus kept “a pretty constant study, undisturbed by the roar of machinery,” and that this habit [Illustration: THE CLYDE AND RUINS OF THE OLD MILL AT BLANTYRE.] [Illustration: WHERE LIVINGSTONE LIVED AT ONGAR.]