events. Many things indeed upon which they scarce cast an eye when
they came, they were now capable of regarding with a little feeble
interest. Nor, although ignorant of everything agricultural, were
they quite unused to animals; having horses they called their own,
they would not unfrequently go to the stables to give their orders,
or see that they were carried out.

They waited for some time hoping the fight would begin again, and
drew a little nearer; then, as by common consent, left the road,
passed the ruin, ran down the steep side of the ridge, and began to
toil through the stubble towards the ploughman. A sharp straw would
every now and then go through a delicate stocking, and the damp soil
gathered in great lumps on their shoes, but they plodded on,
laughing merrily as they went.

The Macruadh was meditating the power of the frost to break up the
clods of the field, when he saw the girls close to him. He pulled in
his cattle, and taking off his bonnet with one hand while the other
held both reins--

"Excuse me, ladies," he said; "my animals are young, and not quite
broken."

They were not a little surprised at such a reception, and were
driven to conclude that the man must be the laird himself. They had
heard that he cultivated his own land, but had not therefore
imagined him labouring in his own person.

In spite of the blindness produced by their conventional training,
vulgarly called education, they could not fail to perceive something