Larry stopped stock-still and looked. A man was coming toward them. The man was still a long way off, but they could see that he carried something on his back. And beside the road, not so far away from where the Twins stood, there was a camp, like a gypsy camp.
“’Tis the Tinkers!” whispered Larry. He took Eileen’s hand and pulled her with him behind a heap of stones by the road. Then they crept along very quietly and climbed over the wall into a field.
From behind the wall they could peep between the stones at the Tinkers’ Camp without being seen.
The Twins were afraid of Tinkers. Everybody is in Ireland, because the Tinkers wander around over the country without having any homes anywhere.
They go from house to house in all the villages mending the pots and pans, and often they steal whatever they can lay their hands on.
At night they sleep on the ground with only straw for a bed, and they cook in a kettle over a camp-fire.
The Twins were so badly scared that their teeth chattered.
Eileen was the first to say anything.
“However will we g-g-g-get home at all?” she whispered. “They’ve a dog with them, and he’ll b-b-b-bark at us surely. Maybe he’ll bite us!”