His horses for to clean.
She ran to the window and, looking out into the whiteness, she was blinded for the first moment by the sun shining on to the dazzling field of snow, but in the next instant she perceived three great chestnut horses standing just below her immediately in front of the door. They were harnessed to a plough, at the handles of which stood a labourer, whilst at the head of each of the horses was a young carter, and on the foremost of the horses were two little boys riding. It was the voices of these little boys which were so oddly out of tune.
Anne was astonished to see them with their plough and horses so close to the doorstep, and was filled with a sense of strangeness even before she saw what was most strange about these visitors. That a plough should be standing so close to the house was strange, and even for the moment seemed to her shocking, for one of the horses was standing on a flower-bed, but this was nothing to the appearance of the men, for all of them had their faces blacked and their shoulders and their caps were white with snow. The black faces against the whiteness of the snow frightened her; for a moment she caught her breath with fear, which turned almost instantly to wonder and delight.
With chaff and corn
He did them bait,
Their tails and manes
He did comb straight.
What was it? What was it? Something strange, something beautiful, the thing perhaps she had always wanted, and half guessed at, but which she had never before met face to face.
The tune changed:
Come all you lads and lasses