The glade was green and in many places soft, though by no means boggy. Near a bush Kenneth quickly dug a grave, and with a sigh he laid the lamb therein, and covered it up, laying the sod down again, so that it was scarcely discernible from the turf around it.
Then he shouldered his spade and prepared to go back. But remembering something else, he made a détour and came at last to a patch of whins.
Hidden in a cosy corner close to the ground was a nest well lined with feathers, and the little bird popped stealthily out as he approached.
“Oh! the beauties,” cried the boy, “the bonnie wee ‘hoties,’” (a kind of finch). “There were four white and red eggs when I saw you last, and there lie four naked gorbles, gaping up at me with wide yellow mouths. Now that nest is easily seen, and if other boys find it when I’m no’ here, they’ll kill the young and break the mither’s heart. I’ll try and hide it. It’s maybe the last nest I’ll find this season.” As he spoke he looked about, and soon found a branchlet of withered whins, which he placed carefully in front of the nest, then took up his spade again and was about to withdraw, when his eyes lighted on one of those curious green knolls, that are common enough in some bare mountain glens in the Scottish Highlands.
“A fairy hill!” he said half aloud. “I do wonder now if there are such things as fairies, and if on moonlight nights they come oot, and dance on this green hillock. Oh! wouldn’t I like to see them just! I’ve a good mind to come and watch here some bonnie night. I could bring Kooran; I wouldna be feared if Kooran was with me.”
He climbed up to the top of the green knoll as he spoke. It was perfectly round and smooth, and the grass grew softer and greener here than anywhere else in all the glade. “Why,” he said, “here is a hole near the top for all the world like a lum,” (chimney). “Is it possible, I wonder, that fairies do live inside?”
Down he went now and commenced marching round and round the knoll, prodding it everywhere as he went with his long sharp spade. The spade sank deep each time he thrust it in, until he came round to the upper side, and here it rang against a stone.
The boy went to work with a will, and soon laid that stone bare. It was merely a large flat slab and quite loose. Kenneth leapt up above it, and using the spade as a lever, he prised it up, and over it fell, revealing to the boy’s astonished gaze the entrance to a dark cave. Here was indeed a discovery, and a discovery, too, that dovetailed most completely and perfectly with this lad’s romantic nature.
“Well,” he said, “this is something to think about at last. But I must go to dinner now. Kooran must come with me to explore.”
He left his spade and went away singing down the glade, and back to his heather couch.