The adoring spirit in which he stood one autumn evening at his own door was a very common mood with him.

He looked over the moors carpeted with golden brown, and the hills covered with sheep and cattle, at the towering crags, more like clouds at sunset than things of solid land, at the children among the heather picking bilberries, at the deep, clear, purple mist that filled the valley, not hindering the view, but giving everything a strangely solemn aspect, and his face relaxed into something very like a smile as he said, "It is the wark o' my Father's hand, and praised be his name." He stood at his own open door looking at these things, and inside his wife Mysie was laying the supper-board with haver bread and cheese and milk.

A bright fire blazed on the wide hearth, and half a dozen sheep-dogs spread out their white breasts to the heat.

Great settles of carved oak, bedded deep with fleeces of long wool, were on the sides of the fireplace, and from every wall racks of spotless deal, filled with crockery and pewter, reflected the shifting blaze.
Suddenly he stepped out and looked anxiously towards the horizon on all sides.

"Mysie, woman," said he, "there is a storm coming up from old Solway; I maun e'en gae and fauld the ewes wi' their young lammies.