“The gentry folks, Master Archie, think me a terrible man; and they wonder I don’t go and plough, or something. La! they little know I’ve been brought up in the hills. Sport I must hae. I couldna live away from nature. But I’m never cruel. Heigho! I suppose I must leave the country, and seek for sport in wilder lands, where the man o’ money doesn’t trample on the poor. Only one thing keeps me here.”
He glanced out of the window as he spoke to where his old mother was cooking dinner al fresco—boiling a pot as the gipsy does, hung from a tripod.
“I know, I know,” said Archie.
“How old are you now, Master Archie?”
“Going on for fourteen.”
“Is that all? Why ye’re big eno’ for a lad o’ seventeen!”
This was true. Archie was wondrous tall, and wondrous brown and handsome. His hardy upbringing and constant outdoor exercise, in summer’s shine or winter’s snow, fully accounted for his stature and looks.
“I’m almost getting too big for my pony.”
“Ah! no, lad; Shetlands’ll carry most anything.”
“Well, I must be going, Bob Cooper. Good-bye.”