ich we
live. When Willie's father was riding across the great moorland of those
desolate hills, and the people in the village would be saying to each
other how bitterly cold it was, he would be thinking how snug and warm
it was down there, and how nice it would be to turn a certain corner on
the road back, and slip at once out of the freezing wind that had it all
its own way up among the withered gorse and heather of the wide expanse
where he pursued his dreary journey.

For his part, Willie cared very little what the weather was, but took it
as it came. In the hot summer, he would lie in the long grass and get
cool; in the cold winter, he would scamper about and get warm. When his
hands were as cold as icicles, his cheeks would be red as apples. When
his mother took his hands in hers, and chafed them, full of pity for
their suffering, as she thought it, Willie first knew that they were
cold by the sweet warmth of the kind hands that chafed them: he had
not thought of it before. Climbing amongst the ruins of the Priory, or
playing with Farmer Thomson's boys and girls about the ricks in his
yard, in the thin clear saffron twilight which came so early after noon,
when, to some people, every breath seemed full of needle-points, so
sharp was the cold, he was as comfortable and happy as if he had been a
creature of the winter only, and found himself quite at home in it.

For there were ruins, and pretty large ruins too, which they called the
Priory. It was not often that monks chose such a poor country to settle
in, but I suppose they had their reasons. And I dare say they were not
monks at all, but begging friars, who founded it when they wanted to
reprove the luxury and greed of the monks; and perhaps by the time they
had grown as bad themselves, the place was nearly finished, and they
could not well move it. They had, however, as I have indicated, chosen
the one pretty spot, around which, for a short distance on every side,
the land was tolerably good, and grew excellent oats if poor wheat,
while the gardens were equal to apples and a few pears, besides
abundance of gooseberries, currants, and strawberries.

The ruins of the Priory lay behind Mr Macmichael's cottage--indeed, in
the very garden--of which, along with the house, he had purchased the
fen--that is, the place was his own, so long as he paid a small sum--not
more than fifteen shillings a year, I think--to his superior. How
long it was since the Priory had come