Kindly they are too, and clannish, hardly caring to mix much, far less intermarry, with the peasantry that dwell around them, and when grief falls upon one house it seems to fall on all. A wedding causes happiness and merriment to the whole of a fisher community, and a death, especially by drowning, brings grief to every cot.
Although Eppie was not by any means very old, she was looked up to as the matron of the village—a veritable mother in Israel. She was supposed to know far more of medicine than the old doctor who used to put in an appearance about once a week riding on a wonderful old white pony. When I tell you what this pony did one day, you will, I think, admit he was entitled to be called "wonderful."
Frank, on his Shetland, overtook the old doctor in a wood, and touching his hat to his grey hairs, immediately commenced a conversation.
"That's been a nice pony of yours, sir, in its day."
"Humph!" said the medicine man, "I daresay you think both he and I are out of the hunt, eh?"
"Oh, no, sir! But I say, sir, this is a nice bit of road, isn't it?"
The doctor laughed.
"I do like a cheeky boy," he said; "but see if I don't accept your challenge. From the first milestone to the next, then.
"Now here's the milestone; are you all ready?"
"All ready, sir."