Page:Through South Westland.djvu/264

162 on ahead and break the news to the waiting wife. One wondered how she took it—whether it was after all a relief, when what she had foretold and expected actually came to pass? She utterly refused to leave the place, and set to work on her own account; and here for years she might have been seen in Sandy’s trousers and long boots, pursuing her industry as a farmer.

Were not “Sandy’s ‘kye’ to mind”—and who was going to look after things if she didn’t? Thus she grew old; several times the Old Homestead was nearly burnt down, and eventually her relatives carried her off to civilization on the plains; but though she gave in to them the lonely woman could not get back into civilized ways. “She was aye thinkin’ about the kye,” and she laid her down and died one day: and the long journey came to an end, and peace was at the last. They said she had but one idea of late years; and if anyone called at her house, but one question was ever asked: “Did ye see the kye as ye come along?”

We were not troubled that night with thoughts of Sandy—we slept sound in our sea-green bags. Next morning what a glory of freshness and beauty met me as, very early, I opened the door on a world all blue and silver, the sun just rising over the edge of the dark forest opposite, the river singing a merry song over its shingly shallows, and the green flat sparkling with its dewdrops.