noon
But the blazing peat -- `` The bleezing ingle , and the clean hearth-stane '' -- is the very soul of cheerfulness and comfort . But then peats must be prepared . They do not grow in hedges , nor vegetate in meadows . They must be cut from the black and consolidated moss ; and a peculiarly-constructed spade , with a sharp edge and crooked ear , must be made use of for that purpose ; and into the field of operation must be brought , at casting-time , the spademen , with their spades ; and the barrowmen , and women , boys , and girls , with their barrows ; and the breakfast sowans , with their creamy milk , cut and crossed into circles and squares ; and the dinner stew , with its sappy potatoes and gusty-onioned mutton fragments ; and the rest at noon , with its active sports and feats of agility , and , in particular , with its jumps from the moss-brow into the soft , marshy substance beneath -- and _ thereby hangs my tale _ , which shall be as short and simple as possible . One of the loveliest visions of my boyhood is Nancy Morrison . She was a year or so older than me ; but we went and returned from school together . She was the only daughter of a poor widow woman , who supported herself , in a romantic glen on the skirts of the Queensberry Hills , by bleaching or whitening webs .