heads."

The undeceiving came at length, and then the Laird Fisher was old and
poor. His wife died broken-hearted. After that the laird never rallied.
The breezy irony of the dalesfolk did not spare the old man's bent head.
"He's brankan" (holding up his head) "like a steg swan," they would say
as he went past. The shaft was left unworked, and the holding lay
fallow. Laird Fisher took wage from the lord of the manor to burn
charcoal in the copse.

The old man had raised his vertical shaft, and was laying the oak limbs
against it, when a girl of about eighteen came along the road from the
south, and clambered over the stile that led to the charcoal pit. She
was followed by a sheep-dog, small and wiry as a hill-fox.

"Is that thee, Mercy?" said the charcoal-burner from the fire, without
turning.

The girl was a pretty little thing; yet there was something wrong with
her prettiness. One saw at once that her cheeks should have been pink
and white like the daisy, and that her hair, which was yellow as the
primrose, should have tumbled in wavelets about them. There ought to
have been sunshine in the blue eyes, and laughter on the red lips, and
merry lilt in the soft voice. But the pink had faded from the girl's
cheek; the shadow had chased the sunshine from her eyes; her lips had
taken a downward turn, and a note of sadness had stolen the merriment
from her voice.

"It's only your tea, father," she said, setting down a basket. Then
taking up a spoon that lay on the ground, she stirred the mess that was
simmering over the fire. The dog lay and blinked in the sun.

A rabbit rustled through the coppice, and a jay screeched in the distant
glade. But above all came the peals of merry laughter from below. The
girl's eyes wandered yearningly to the tents over which the flags were
flying.

"Do you hear the sports, father?" she said.

"Ey, lass, there's gay carryin's-on. They're chirming and chirping like
as many sparrows." The old man twisted about. "I should have thowt as
thou'd have been in the thick of the thrang thysel', Mercy, carryin' on
the war."

"I didn't care to go," said Mercy in an undertone.

The old man looked at her silently for a moment.

"Ways me, but thoos not the same heartsome lass," he said, and went on
piling the fagots around the shaft. "But I count nowt of sec wark," he
added, after a pause.

Little Mercy's eyes strayed back from the bubbling pot to the tents
below. There was a shout of applaus