“There’s nane ta’en, nor like to be,” answered the woman.—“Ken ye a place they ca’ Mains o’ Glashruach?”
As she spoke she let go her shawl, and it opened from her face like two curtains.
“Lord! it’s the witch-wife!” cried Donal, retreating a pace in his astonishment.
The woman burst into a great laugh, a hard, unmusical, but not unmirthful laugh.
“Ay!” she said, “was that hoo the fowk wad hae ’t o’ me?”
“It wasna muckle won’er, efter ye cam wydin’ throu’ watter yairds deep, an’ syne gaed doon the spate on a bran’er.”
“Weel, it was the maddest thing!” she returned, with another laugh which stopped abruptly. “—I wadna dee the like again to save my life. But the Michty cairried me throu’.—An’ hoo’s wee Sir Gibbie?—Come in—I dinna ken yer name—but we’re jist at the door o’ my bit garret. Come quaiet up the stair, an’ tell me a’ aboot it.”
“Weel, I wadna be sorry to rist a bit, for I hae tint mysel’ a’thegither, an’ I’m some tiret,” answered Donal. “I but left the Mains thestreen.”
“Come in an’ walcome; an whan ye’re ristit, an’ I’m rid o’ my basket, I’ll sune pit ye i’ the gait o’ hame.”
Donal was too tired, and too glad to be once more in the company of a human being, to pursue further explanation at present. He followed her, as quietly as he could, up the dark stair. When she struck a light, he saw a little garret-room—better than decently furnished, it seemed to the youth from the hills, though his mother would have thought it far from tidy. The moment the woman got a candle lighted, she went to a cupboard, and brought thence a bottle and a glass. When Donal declined the whisky she poured out, she seemed disappointed, and setting down the glass, let it stand. But when she had seated herself, and begun to relate her adventures in quest of Gibbie, she drew it towards her, and sipped as she talked. Some day she would tell him, she said, the whole story of her voyage on the brander, which would make him laugh; it made her laugh, even now, when it came back to her in her bed at night, though she was far enough from laughing at the time. Then she told him a great deal about Gibbie and his father.