't help it. I'd give
the world to be able to stop a horse, like that one last night, but I
can't do it. I get paralysed somehow!..."

"I never heard of any one like that before," she exclaimed.

"No, I don't suppose you have. If you knew how ashamed I feel of myself,
you'd feel sorry for me. I was awake the whole night!"

"Were you?"

"Yes. I kept on thinking you were angry with me and that I was a coward,
and I could feel your fist in my face!..."

"I'm sorry I hit you, Henry!"

"It doesn't matter," he replied. "It served me right. And then when I
did sleep, I kept on dreaming about it. Do you know, Sheila, I fell over
the horse last night in the dark ... they left it lying in the road
after they shot it ... and my hands slithered in the blood!..."

"Aw, the poor baste!" she said, and she began to cry. "The poor dumb
baste!"

"And I kept on dreaming of that ... my hands dribbling in blood....
och!..."

He could not go on because the recollection of his dreams horrified him.
They had moved to the side of the "loanie" and he mechanically stopped
and plucked a long grass and began to wind it round his fingers.

"I think and think about things," he murmured at last.

She put out her hand and touched his arm. "Poor Henry," she said.

He threw the grass away and seized her hand in his.

"Then you'll forgive me?" he said eagerly.

She nodded her head.

"And you'll still be my sweetheart, won't you, and go for walks with
me?..."

She withdrew her hand from his. "No, Henry," she said, "you an' me can't
go courtin' no more!"

"But why?"

"Because I couldn't marry a man was afeard of things. I'd never be happy
with a man like that. I'd fall out with you if you were a collie, I know
I would, an' I'd be miserable if my man hadn't the pluck of any other
man. I'm sorry I bate you last night, but I'd do it again if it happened
another time ... an' there'd be no good in that!"

"But you said you'd marry me!..."

"Och, sure, Henry, you know well I couldn't marry you. You wouldn't be
let. I'm a poor girl, an' you're a high-up lad. Whoever heard tell of
the like of us marryin', except mebbe in books. I knew well we'd never
marry, but I liked goin' about with you, an' listenin' to your crack,
an' you kissin' me an' tellin' me the way you loved me. You've a quare
nice English voice on you, an' you know it well, an' I just liked to
hear it ... but didn't I know rightly, you'd never marry the like of
me!"

"I will