But one glance at Bob is enough for the collie. He disappears—goes bounding away over the hill, evidently to seek his master, for when we enter the one-roomed hut we find it deserted.
There is a bright fire on a low hearth, however, and the smoke finds its way up a real chimney, and not through a hole in the roof, as is the case so often in Highland shepherd huts. There is a pot hanging over the fire, simmering away slowly, and raising its lid a little every now and then to emit a whiff of steam, so savoury that Master Bob begins to lick his lips, and seems to wonder that I do not at once proceed to have supper.
I shake my head, as he looks up in my face inquiringly.
“No, no, Bob,” I say; “that pot does not belong to me.”
“Nonsense,” says Bob; at least he thinks it. “Nonsense, master, all the world belongs to you if you could only believe it. You’re king of the universe, in my mind at all events.”
We sit and look at the pot. There is an old-fashioned wag-at-the-wall clock, tick-ticking away, but no other sound. After a time the clock clears its throat, and slowly rasps out the hour of nine, then goes quietly on tick-ticking again.
A whole hour passes. The clock clears its throat once more and gives ten wheezy knocks.
Bob suggests supper more emphatically. I am getting very weary.
Those we left behind us must think we are indeed lost, or swallowed up in a quagmire. The thought makes me very uneasy, and I begin almost to wish my adventure in the weird forest may be all a dream, that presently the peat-fire, pot and soup and all may vanish, and I may wake in bed.
But while thus musing I am startled very much indeed, and so too is Bob, at hearing a cracked and dismal world-old voice close beside me say with a long-drawn sigh: