A few yards from the cottage the land ended on the seashore. The sand was covered with brown seaweed; a cart filled with it was propped up on stones. Bits of cork and wood were strewn about in every direction, and beyond the line of dry seaweed there were big round stones covered with golden brown seaweed, still wet, for the tide was only half-way out.
Aunt Charlotte didn't like this sea very much. She said it was all so untidy. Not even the beautiful green crabs that Fly caught under the wet seaweed pleased her, so after a few minutes they turned back. The children were afraid that Jane Dyer would not have come home yet, but just as they passed the cottage Aunt Charlotte suddenly gripped hold of Mick's arm.
"Who is that," she said sharply; "there, coming down the lane?" Fly gave a hysterical giggle. Coming towards them down the lane was a tall figure dressed in an old green ulster coat, tied in round the waist by an apron; white hair fell about a flat white face, and big bare feet splashed in the mud. As it came it muttered and frowned and shook its fist.
"Who is it, I say?" said Aunt Charlotte.
"It's Jane Dyer," said Mick.
Patsy gave a loud 'Hee-haw,' that was supposed to remind Jane of her dead donkey, and always made her wild with rage, even if the sight of visitors in her lane had not already made her angry. She came swinging along, muttering and cursing to herself, stopping here and there to pick up a stone, till her apron was full. Then, with a sudden leap in the air, she aimed. The stone hit Fly on the shin; she gave a yell of pain, and was over the wall in a second. The boys followed, while a volley of stones and curses came from the lane. Aunt Charlotte was left behind. They heard her scrambling over the wall, the loose stones rolling off as she scrambled, and as they ran they could hear her panting: "My God, my God, this is awful!"
Two fields away the boys found Fly sitting on a bank nursing her leg. "Did ye hear her takin' her Maker's name in vain?" said Patsy, and he rolled on the grass with laughter.
"I niver seen ould Jane in better fettle," said Mick.
"If we'd had any wit we'd 'a' set Sammy on her too," said Fly.
"We'll do it yit," said Patsy, and there and then they began to run like hares along the road to the cottage where Sammy lived. Sammy was an innocent, and lived in a one-roomed cottage on the roadside that was entirely hidden from sight by the rowan-trees that grew round it. He was a little old man, who spent his days attending to his sister's pig. There was not a more peaceable soul in the countryside, but on the subject of the pig Sammy could be roused to fury. He talked to it, sang to it, fed it out of his hand. When he walked about the fields the pig followed at his heels, when he sat on the doorstep it lay at his feet. But if one of the village children threw a stone at it, or if any threatened in joke to harm it, Sammy was beside himself with rage, and it was an insult he never forgot. Twice a week he came to Rowallan for the refuse and broken meat, and, next to the pig, he loved the children. He was at home when they knocked at the door, and came out at once.