"It doesn't matter," he replied. "It served me right. And then when I did sleep, I kept on dreaming about it. Do you know, Sheila, I fell over the horse last night in the dark ... they left it lying in the road after they shot it ... and my hands slithered in the blood!..." "Aw, the poor baste!" she said, and she began to cry. "The poor dumb baste!" "And I kept on dreaming of that ... my hands dribbling in blood.... och!..." He could not go on because the recollection of his dreams horrified him. They had moved to the side of the "loanie" and he mechanically stopped and plucked a long grass and began to wind it round his fingers. "I think and think about things," he murmured at last. She put out her hand and touched his arm. "Poor Henry," she said. He threw the grass away and seized her hand in his. "Then you'll forgive me?" he said eagerly. She nodded her head. "And you'll still be my sweetheart, won't you, and go for walks with me?..." She withdrew her hand from his. "No, Henry," she said, "you an' me can't go courtin' no more!" "But why?" "Because I couldn't marry a man was afeard of things. I'd never be happy with a man like that. I'd fall out with you if you were a collie, I know I would, an' I'd be miserable if my man hadn't the pluck of any other man. I'm sorry I bate you last night, but I'd do it again if it happened another time ... an' there'd be no good in that!" "But you said you'd marry me!..." "Och, sure, Henry, you know well I couldn't marry you. You wouldn't be let. I'm a poor girl, an' you're a high-up lad. Whoever heard tell of the like of us marryin', except mebbe in books. I knew well we'd never marry, but I liked goin' about with you, an' listenin' to your crack, an' you kissin' me an' tellin' me the way you loved me. You've a quare nice English voice on you, an' you know it well, an' I just liked to hear it ... but didn't I know rightly, you'd never marry the like of me!" "I will, Sheila, I will!" "Ah, wheesht with you. What good 'ud a man like you be to a girl like me. I'll have this farm when my Uncle Matt dies, an' what use 'ud you be on it, will you tell me, you that runs away cryin' from a frightened horse?" "You could sell the farm!..." "Sell the farm!" she exclaimed. "Dear bless us, boy, what are you sayin' at all? Sell this farm, an' it's been in our family these generations past! There's been Hamiltons in this house for a hundred an' fifty years an' more. I wouldn't sell it for the world!" "But I must have you, Sheila. I must marry you!" "Why must you?" "I just must!..."