And then, when he had perfected himself for the way he had chosen, a better way opened suddenly before him. Without a sign of the cost, he renounced all he had been looking forward to all his life, and dedicated himself wholeheartedly to the greater work. All that he had acquired, however, with so different an end in view, remained with him, and helped to make him the man he was; and it was into such hands that, by the grace of God, these two wild Carron colts had fallen. A missionary, when he sets out to turn his unruly flock from their old savageries, must, if he understands human nature and his work, provide other and less harmful outlets for the energies resulting from generations of tumult and slaughter. Eager taught his young savages boxing on the most scientific principles, and made the gloves himself. He taught them fencing with basket-hilted sticks, constructed under his own eyes by the old basket-weaver in the village. Prompt appeal to arms was still permitted in settlement of their endless disputes; but the business was regularised, and tended, all unconsciously on the part of the combatants, to education. For their inexhaustible energies he found new and much-appreciated vent in games on the sands. And if these were crude enough performances, compared with their later developments familiar to ourselves, they still had in them those elements of saving grace which all such games teach in the playing--self-control, fair-play, honour And these be mighty things to learn. In the summer they played cricket. The bat and ball Eager provided; the stumps he made himself. He also instructed them in the mysteries of hare-and-hounds, which chimed mightily with their humour, especially when he supplemented it with a course of Fenimore Cooper. They became mighty hunters and notable trackers, their natural instincts and previous training standing them in excellent stead. In the winter the flats rang to their shouts at football and hockey, crudely played, but mightily relished. And always, in and alongside their play and in between, but so deftly administered that it seemed to them but a natural part of the whole, their education proceeded by leaps and bounds. They drank in knowledge unawares, and learned intuitively things that mere teaching is powerless to teach. When he found them they were simply self-centred and selfish little savages--each for himself, and heedless of anything outside his own skin; and their manners and customs were such as naturally fitted their state. As their minds opened to the larger things outside, and they began to be drawn away from themselves, their natural proclivities came into play. Like hardy wild-flowers, their rough outer sheaths began to open to the sun, revealing glimpses of the better things within. And, all unconsciously to herself or to them, little Grace Eager was the sun to whom, in the beginning, their expansion was due.