which grew some now leafless roses and honeysuckles. To the left of
the door a scanty bit of garden was squeezed in between the hill,
against which the house was set edgeways, and the rest of the flat
space, occupied by the uneven farmyard, the cart-shed and stable,
the cow-houses and duck-pond. This garden contained two shabby
apple trees, as yet hardly touched by the spring; some currant and
gooseberry bushes, already fairly green; and a clump or two of
scattered daffodils and wallflowers. The hedge round it was broken
through in various places, and it had a casual neglected air.

The children went their way through the yard. In front of them a
flock of some forty sheep and lambs pushed along, guarded by two
black short-haired collies. The boy, brandishing a long stick,
opened a gate deplorably in want of mending, and the sheep crowded
through, keenly looked after by the dogs, who waited meanwhile on
their flanks with heads up, ears cocked, and that air of
self-restrained energy which often makes a sheep-dog more human
than his master. The field beyond led to a little larch plantation,
where a few primroses showed among the tufts of long, rich grass,
and the drifts of last year's leaves. Here the flock scattered a
little, but David and the dogs were after them in a twinkling, and
the plantation gate was soon closed on the last bleating mother.
Then there was nothing more for the boy to do than to go up to the
top of the green rising ground on which the farm stood and see if
the gate leading to the moor was safely shut. For the sheep he had
been driving were not meant for the open moorland. Their feeding
grounds lay in the stone-walled fields round the homestead, and had
they strayed on to the mountain beyond, which was reserved for a
hardier Scotch breed, David would have been answerable. So he
strode, whistling, up the hill to have a look at that top gate,