hens scarting about the place, and the
greenness is gone from it.

There was the stone of twenty-two snails close by, for that was the
number we found on it, a thing I have many times thought about; and
great games we had, Bryde with his black hair and swarthy skin and wild
blue eyes, with laughter just ready in them, and the speed and grace of
a wild cat; and Hugh, ruddy like his folks, and dour too and very
loyal; and the lass Margaret, who could turn Bryde with her little
finger, and gloried in the doing of it. Ay, they grew up with me, and
would be swimming with me in the sea, and every path in the hills we
would be riding over, and we were happy together. These were the
happiest hours of all, ochone; the sun shone more brightly and the days
were longer.

And in his mother's eyes there was none like Bryde. The sun rose and
set on him, his every little mannerism was a joy, and I have watched
her gazing at him for long without speech, and suddenly rise and press
his head against her heart, and her happiness was when he looked up
from his task and smiled. I think never was a hand laid on him in
anger.

There was something elemental about the lad. He would stand mother
naked in the dim morning light below the little fall, and his pony
awaiting him, and he kent every horse and dog within twenty miles.
Indeed, there was a time when he would have slept with his horses.

"They might be needing me in the night," said he.

In these days we grew hay in a droll fashion. If there was a field
namely for good grass, we would be getting green divots from it and
putting them in our own parks, and scattering good rich earth round the
divots. And when the grass was blown about by the winds, the seeds
would fall and strike on the loose scattered earth, so that these
divots were the leaven that leavened the whole field. But when he was
sixteen and man grown, a fair scholar and expert with the sword, Bryde
would be laughing at the notion. And he was strong and tough like the
mountain ash.

"Hill land," said he, "will only be growing hill grass," and he set his
folk and he went himself and took the seeds from the hill grasses.
Guid kens how long it took him, but he sowed his hill grasses with his
corn, and the seeds came, as we say, and he cut it and threshed it with
the flails; and after that he had hay-stacks in his yard, and his
beasts were well done by, so that at the fair he got great prices both
for stots and back-