where the sea-birds build, and the staghorn
moss is boot-deep, and in that little plouting burn there was grand
water to be making the whisky. And in the gloaming have I seen a
lonely man with his dog at heel, hurrying by the burn-side, through the
bare birch trees, and disappearing to his night watch in some cunning
place on the hillside. And once at the place where there is now a
little holly-tree, gnarled and full of years, I met the limber lads
with the kegs on their backs, and carrying the worm and all the gear
for the whisky-making. And we buried everything in the peat hags below
the three hills, for the excisemen were close on us, and there they
lie, kegs and stoups, to this day; and would not the whisky be fine to
be drinking now, but maybe a little peaty.

CHAPTER XV.

THE STRANGER ON THE MOORS.

It would be well on into May, for the men were thrang with work, and
the lassies at the big house haining a bit of bannock to be putting
under their pillows for fear of hearing the cuckoo, when first I heard
the strange whistling. It is not a very lucky thing to be hearing the
cuckoo and you wanting food, and I think this is just a haver of the
old folk to be making the young ones rise early on the fine clear
mornings; but many's the first bite I ken was taken from below the
pillows, and the cuckoo crying like all that.

There was a thick bit of a wood behind the stackyard at the big house,
and as I lay listening to the sounds of the early morning there came
often of late this clear melody, not loud but sweet and thrilling, as I
had heard Ronny McKinnon whistle and Dan too, and the words of that
tune are not to be talked about; but when I went quietly to the
planting one morning there was only the little moving of birds in the
greyness of the morning and the stillness of the wood.

I came back to the kitchen and rummaged the aumary for something to be
eating, and made my way to the stable and put a feed before my beast,
and watched him hard at it and the other beasts stamping and rattling
at their chains in their impatience.

We were on the hill road before the sun, for there was the matter of a
calf to be seeing to, and it was fine to be alone in the fresh day with
the dew still heavy on the green grass and wetting the horse to the
fetlocks; and the sun was coming up in the East, and here and there the
curl of blue smoke rising up from far-out clachans. I would maybe be
on the other side of the blac