There was a burn running over the road down from the little loch with the green rush islands, where the sea-birds build, and the staghorn moss is boot-deep, and in that little plouting burn there was grand water to be making the whisky. And in the gloaming have I seen a lonely man with his dog at heel, hurrying by the burn-side, through the bare birch trees, and disappearing to his night watch in some cunning place on the hillside. And once at the place where there is now a little holly-tree, gnarled and full of years, I met the limber lads with the kegs on their backs, and carrying the worm and all the gear for the whisky-making. And we buried everything in the peat hags below the three hills, for the excisemen were close on us, and there they lie, kegs and stoups, to this day; and would not the whisky be fine to be drinking now, but maybe a little peaty.
It would be well on into May, for the men were thrang with work, and the lassies at the big house haining a bit of bannock to be putting under their pillows for fear of hearing the cuckoo, when first I heard the strange whistling. It is not a very lucky thing to be hearing the cuckoo and you wanting food, and I think this is just a haver of the old folk to be making the young ones rise early on the fine clear mornings; but many's the first bite I ken was taken from below the pillows, and the cuckoo crying like all that.
There was a thick bit of a wood behind the stackyard at the big house, and as I lay listening to the sounds of the early morning there came often of late this clear melody, not loud but sweet and thrilling, as I had heard Ronny McKinnon whistle and Dan too, and the words of that tune are not to be talked about; but when I went quietly to the planting one morning there was only the little moving of birds in the greyness of the morning and the stillness of the wood.
I came back to the kitchen and rummaged the aumary for something to be eating, and made my way to the stable and put a feed before my beast, and watched him hard at it and the other beasts stamping and rattling at their chains in their impatience.
We were on the hill road before the sun, for there was the matter of a calf to be seeing to, and it was fine to be alone in the fresh day with the dew still heavy on the green grass and wetting the horse to the fetlocks; and the sun was coming up in the East, and here and there the curl of blue smoke rising up from far-out clachans. I would maybe be on the other side of the black hill and going finely, and relishing the green of the new growth, when there came to me that sweet whistling again, and cooried by the roadside beside a grey stone I saw a man sitting. He was the droll figure of a man, with outlandish garb and wee gold earrings. His teeth showed white as milk against his swarthy face, and he had many colours about him, at his throat and his waist, and useless tatters and tassels, but withal he had the proud bearing of mountain folk, and level black brows.