“Why?” asked Allister.
“I don’t know. It was the nature of the beast. His eyes couldn’t bear the light, I suppose; but he could see in the dark quite well.—One night the girl woke suddenly, and saw his great head looking in at her window.”
“But how could she see him when it was dark?” said Allister.
“His eyes were flashing so that they lighted up all his head,” answered Kirsty.
“But he couldn’t get in!”
“No; he couldn’t get in. He was only looking in, and thinking how he should like to eat her. So in the morning she told her father. And her father was very frightened, and told her she must never be out one moment after the sun was down. And for a long time the girl was very careful. And she had need to be; for the creature never made any noise, but came up as quiet as a shadow. One afternoon, however, she had gone to meet her lover a little way down the glen; and they stopped talking so long, about one thing and another, that the sun was almost set before she bethought herself. She said good-night at once, and ran for home. Now she could not reach home without passing the pot, and just as she passed the pot, she saw the last sparkle of the sun as he went down.”
“I should think she ran!” remarked our mouthpiece, Allister.
“She did run,” said Kirsty, “and had just got past the awful black pot, which was terrible enough day or night without such a beast in it, when—”
“But there was the beast in it,” said Allister.
“When,” Kirsty went on without heeding him, “she heard a great whish of water behind her. That was the water tumbling off the beast’s back as he came up from the bottom. If she ran before, she flew now. And the worst of it was that she couldn’t hear him behind her, so as to tell whereabouts he was. He might be just opening his mouth to take her every moment. At last she reached the door, which her father, who had gone out to look for her, had set wide open that she might run in at once; but all the breath was out of her body, and she fell down flat just as she got inside.”