d the luggie dry, and set it where he
had found it. He had got his breakfast--no mean or poor one.

But he did not doubt that he was, as his aunt had said, "a lazy,
deceitful, thieving hound."

Kit Kennedy came out of the byre, and trudged away out over the field at
the back of the barn, to the sheep in the park. He heard one of them
cough as a human being does behind his hand. The lantern threw dancing
reflections on the snow. Tyke grovelled and rolled in the light drift,
barking loudly. He bit at his own tail. Kit set down the lantern, and
fell upon him for a tussle. The two of them had rolled one another into
a snowdrift in exactly ten seconds, from which they rose glowing with
heat--the heat of young things when the blood runs fast. Tyke, being
excited, scoured away wildly, and circled the park at a hand-gallop
before his return. But Kit only lifted the lantern and made for the
turnip-pits.

The turnip-cutter stood there, with great square mouth black against the
sky. That mouth must be filled. Kit went to the end of the barrow-like
mound of the turnip-pit. It was covered with snow, so that it hardly
showed above the level of the field. Kit threw back the coverings of old
sacks and straw which kept the turnips from the frost. There lay the
great green-and-yellow globes full of sap. The snow fell upon them from
the top of the pit. The frost grasped them without. It was a chilly job
to handle them, but Kit did not hesitate a moment.

He filled his arms with them, and went to the turnip-cutter. Soon the
_crunch, crunch_ of the knives was to be heard as Kit drove round the
handle, and afterwards the frosty sound of the square finger-lengths of
cut turnip falling into the basket. The sheep had gathered about him,
silently for the most part. Tyke sat still and dignified now, guarding
the lantern, which the sheep were inclined to butt over. Kit heard the
animals knocking against the empty troughs with their hard little
trotters, and snuffing about them with their nostrils.

He lifted the heavy basket, heaved it against his breast, and made his
way down the long line of troughs. The sheep crowded about him, shoving
and elbowing each other like so many human beings, callously and
selfishly. His first basket did not go far, as he shovelled it in great
handfuls into the troughs, and Kit came back for another. It was tiring
work, and the day was dawning grey when he had finished. Then he made
the circuit of the field, to a