e sharp with a man that had done nothing
to anger her that I could see.

"Aweel, I was aye a bonny rinner," says Dan. "When I was herdin' and
the beasts lay down behind the black hill in the forenoon, I could rin
tae the Wineport and back before they were rising." I laughed to think
how we estimate time in the college by the rules of Physics, and how
the herd on the moorside did, and wondered who but he could say how
long a cow beast would lie and chew her cud, and how many miles a man
could run in the time she took to chew it.

"I will not be having you running at all, and, indeed, you have been
kind and good to me. But why should I be going back to that place when
the thing is done I came to be doing? I will go away to my own folk,
and you will be forgetting me."

"I'll never be forgettin' you," says he, calling her pet words that
made me wish myself far enough away, for I was shy of lovers' talk, and
he held her to his breast and spoke quickly, and turned and caught the
bridle of his horse.

"No," cried the lass--"no, I will not be staying here," and I was glad
the moon was clouded at her words, "and you will not be seeing me till
I am grown old and wrinkled like a granny."

At that he gathered her in his arms, and for a while I saw only his
head and not her face at all, except just a blur that looked pale, and
then I heard her say--

"You will be saying that to all these other women, for you will be
wicked."

"Not wicked any more, lass. I'll just be loving you, and why are ye
turned soft; where is the lass that asked me would I burn?"

"Indeed, it is just with you I will be too gentle, I think, all my
days, for ye will be a brute and a baby, all in one, and yet you would
be aye kind to me. I could not be tholing another man after ye."

"I think I would not be tholing that either, my dear," cried he in a
fierce voice, "but the lantern has to be lighted and the fire. Maybe
ye'll let me do that much for you," and this time I saw her smiling,
and clinging to him with both her hands.

At the door she waited till he had made the horse comfortable in the
stone fanks,[2] and when he joined her she stretched her arms up and
pulled his head down.

"I am wishing to do this," she said, and kissed him on the mouth. "You
will not be loving any more but me," and she struck him lightly but
with fierce abandon on the cheek, and I heard him laughing, and then
the door opened and closed, and I had all the hills t