In the morning I went up the fell; it was a wet, cold morning, with gusts of wind driving the showers like a solid sheet eastward.

We had a hard fight up the breast of the mountain; and the house looked bleak and desolate, for the men were all in the barn threshing, and the women in the kitchen at the butter-troughs.

I stood in the porch to catch my breath, and take my plaid from around the child; and I heard father in a loud, solemn voice saying the Collect,--father always spoke in that way when he was saying the Confession or the Collect,--and I knew very well that he would be standing at that east window, with his prayer-book open on the sill.

So I waited until I heard the 'Amen,' and then I lifted the latch and went in.

He turned around and faced me; and his eyes fell at once upon little Steve, who was a bonny lad then, more than three years old.