Heather and Snow | Page 3

gie ye the start o' me up to yon stane wi' the heather growin oot o'
the tap o' 't.'
'Na, na; I'll hae nane o' that!' answered Francis.
'Fairplay to a'!'
'Ye'd better tak it!'
'Aff wi' ye, or I winna rin at a'!' cried the boy,--and away they went.
Kirsty contrived that he should yet have a little the start of her--how
much from generosity, and how much from determination that there
should be nothing doubtful in the result, I cannot say--and for a good
many yards he kept it. But if the boy, who ran well, had looked back,
he might have seen that the girl was not doing her best--that she was in
fact restraining her speed. Presently she quickened her pace, and was
rapidly lessening the distance between them, when, becoming aware of
her approach, the boy quickened his, and for a time there was no
change in their relative position. Then again she quickened her

pace--with an ease which made her seem capable of going on to
accelerate it indefinitely--and was rapidly overtaking him. But as she
drew near, she saw he panted, not a little distressed; whereupon she
assumed a greater speed still, and passed him swiftly--nor once looked
round or slackened her pace until, having left him far behind, she put a
shoulder of the hill between them.
The moment she passed him, the boy flung himself on the ground and
lay. The girl had felt certain he would do so, and fancied she heard him
flop among the heather, but could not be sure, for, although not even
yet at her speed, her blood was making tunes in her head, and the wind
was blowing in and out of her ears with a pleasant but deafening
accompaniment. When she knew he could see her no longer, she
stopped likewise and threw herself down while she was determining
whether she should leave him quite, or walk back at her leisure, and let
him see how little she felt the run. She came to the conclusion that it
would be kinder to allow him to get over his discomfiture in private.
She rose, therefore, and went straight up the hill.
About half-way to the summit, she climbed a rock as if she were a goat,
and looked all round her. Then she uttered a shrill, peculiar cry, and
listened. No answer came. Getting down as easily as she had got up,
she walked along the side of the hill, making her way nearly parallel
with their late racecourse, passing considerably above the spot where
her defeated rival yet lay, and descending at length a little hollow not
far from where she and Francis had been sitting.
In this hollow, which was covered with short, sweet grass, stood a very
small hut, built of turf from the peat-moss below, and roofed with sods
on which the heather still stuck, if, indeed, some of it was not still
growing. So much was it, therefore, of the colour of the ground about it,
that it scarcely caught the eye. Its walls and its roof were so thick that,
small as it looked, it was much smaller inside; while outside it could
not have measured more than ten feet in length, eight in width, and
seven in height. Kirsty and her brother Steenie, not without help from
Francis Gordon, had built it for themselves two years before. Their
father knew nothing of the scheme until one day, proud of their success,

Steenie would have him see their handiwork; when he was so much
pleased with it that he made them a door, on which he put a lock:--
'For though this be na the kin' o' place to draw crook-fingered gentry,'
he said, 'some gangrel body micht creep in and mak his bed intil 't, and
that lock 'ill be eneuch to haud him oot, I'm thinkin.'
He also cut for them a hole through the wall, and fitted it with a
window that opened and shut, which was more than could be said of
every window at the farmhouse.
Into this nest Kirsty went, and in it remained quiet until it began to
grow dark. She had hoped to find her brother waiting for her, but,
although disappointed, chose to continue there until Francis Gordon
should be well on his way to the castle, and then she crept out, and ran
to recover her stocking.
When she got home, she found Steenie engrossed in a young horse
their father had just bought. She would fain have mounted him at once,
for she would ride any kind of animal able to carry her; but, as he had
never yet been backed, her father would not permit her.

CHAPTER II
MOTHER AND SON
Francis lay for some time, thinking