“There’s a business!” said my father. “I’m afraid the poor things will only go farther to fare the worse. We are as well without them, however; and if they should find their way home, so much the better for us. They might have kept us a little warmer though. We must fight the cold as we best can for the rest of the night, for it would only be folly to leave the spot before it is light enough to see where we are going.”
It came into my mind suddenly how I had burrowed in the straw to hide myself after running from Dame Shand’s. But whether that or the thought of burrowing in the peat-stack came first, I cannot tell. I turned and felt whether I could draw out a peat. With a little loosening I succeeded.
“Father,” I said, “couldn’t we make a hole in the peat-stalk, and build ourselves in?”
“A capital idea, my boy!” he answered, with a gladness in his voice which I venture to attribute in part to his satisfaction at finding that I had some practical sense in me. “We’ll try it at once.”
“I’ve got two or three out already,” I said, for I had gone on pulling, and it was easy enough after one had been started.
“We must take care we don’t bring down the whole stack though,” said my father.
“Even then,” I returned, “we could build ourselves up in them, and that would be something.”
“Right, Ranald! It would be only making houses to our own shape, instead of big enough to move about in—turning crustaceous animals, you know.”
“It would be a peat-greatcoat at least,” I remarked, pulling away.
“Here,” he said, “I will put my stick in under the top row. That will be a sort of lintel to support those above.”