e great little horses we had these days, with little
heads such as I have seen in the paintings of Arab steeds, and an alert
eager look to them, broad forehead, and soft neat muzzle. Close
coupled they were, with a great girth, broad chest and sloping
shoulders, and legs like iron. But it was the pride and the strength
of them I never tired of, and it may be there was truth in the talk of
the old folk, that the Hielan' horse was come off Spanish or Moorish
horses of the Armada. But none could tell me if these Arab horses
would be having the silver tail and mane of our little horses. And as
I stood looking, I thought me it was a dreary wild place for a lass to
be living her lane, with the muirfowl for company and the great geese
flying north in the spring, and the bleating of sheep in the mist.

So all that winter I worked by the cottage; on the dry days thatching
and building, keeping a little horse to take me over the peat road in
the gloaming.

In the mornings I would be at it with mattock and spade delving hard at
the founds, and I had the great days sliping stones. Indeed, I became
so strong and proud of myself that you will see to this day on that
hillside the dents I struck on great boulders, that now I would be
sweir to move. I had with me an old man from the Lowlands, very good
at the building of dry-stone dykes, a knowledgeable man in many ways,
but especially in trees and gardens and such-like. The byre we built
was not very big, and very dark, but it was cosy, too, under the
crooked joists, and covered with heather scraws and thatch. In the
loft I put flat boards across the joists, and made a square hole in the
doorway, and brought hens and cocks to be making the place more
homelike.

All this was on my uncle's hill land, but I had my way of it, and
jaloused maybe that the mistress was putting in her good word, for she
had aye a soft side for young Dan. When I told him about breaking in
from the moor, he hummed and hawed and gloomed at me. "This will mean
the less sheep," says he.

"There's a wean coming," said I, and felt the blood rise in my face to
be saying it. "Has he to be put in the heather, and die maybe in a
sheuch like a braxy ewe."

"Tut," says he, his colour rising a bit; "these are no words to be in
the mouth of a boy," but I kent I had him on the soft side. "A man
must be dacent to his ain blood," said he, and that was the last of it.

So we had the great days at the burning o