There was the little gray house itself, with the peat smoke
curling from the chimney straight up into the blue sky. Back of
it was the garden-patch with its low stone wall, and back of that
were the fowl-yard and the straw-covered byre for the cow.
Beyond, and to the north lay the moors, covered with heather and
dotted with grazing sheep. Jean could hear the tinkle of their
bells, the bleating of the lambs, and the comforting maternal
answers of the ewes. Above the dark forest which spread itself
over the slopes of the foot-hills toward the south and east a
lave rock was singing, and she could hear the cry of whaups
wheeling and circling over the moors. They were pleasant morning
sounds, dear and familiar to Jean's ear, and oh, the sparkle of
the dew on the bracken, and the smell of the hawthorn by the
garden wall! Jean lifted her pail of water and went singing with
it up the hill-slope to the house for sheer joy that she was
alive.
"The Campbells are coming, O ho, O ho!" she sang, and the hills,
taking up the refrain, echoed "O ho, O ho!"
True Tammas, who had slept all night under the straw-stack by the
byre, came bounding down the little path to meet her, wagging his
tail and barking his morning greeting.
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