The cart rumbled on with many a jolt, the carter jogged by the side and talked, the sound and motion were both drowsy, and Kirsteen was extremely tired. By and by these sounds and sensations melted into a haze of almost beatitude, the drowsiness that comes over tired limbs and spirit when comparative ease succeeds to toil. After a while she lost consciousness altogether and slept nestled in the straw, like a tired child. She was awakened by the stoppage of the cart, and opening her eyes to the gray yet soft heavens above and the wonder of waking in the open air, found herself at the end of a road which led up to a farmstead at the mouth of Glencroe where the valley opens out upon the shore of that long inlet of the sea which is called Loch Long.
“I’m wae to disturb ye, but I must take the cairt back to the town, and my ain house is two miles down the loch. But there’s a real dacent woman at the inn at Arrochar.”
“It’s there I was going,” said Kirsteen hurriedly sliding from her place. She had been covered with her camlet cloak as she lay, and the straw had kept her warm. “I’m much obliged to you,” she said—“will ye take a—will ye let me give you—”
“No a farden, no a farden,” cried the man. “I would convoy ye to Mrs. Macfarlane’s door, but I have to supper my horse. Will ye gie me a shake of your hand? You’re a bonny lass and I hope ye’ll be a guid ane—but mind there’s awfu’ temptations in thae towns.”
Kirsteen walked away very stiff but refreshed, half angry, half amused by this last caution. She said to herself with a blush that he could not have known who she was—a lady! or he would not have given her that warning, which was not applicable to the like of her. They said poor lassies in service, out among strangers, stood in need of it, poor things. It was not a warning that had any meaning to a gentlewoman; but how was the man to know?
She went on still in a strange confusion of weariness and the haze of awakening to where the little town of Arrochar lay low by the banks of the loch. It was dark there sooner than in other places, and already a light or two began to twinkle in the windows. Two or three men were lingering outside the inn when Kirsteen reached the place, and daunted her—she who was never daunted. She went quickly past, as quickly as her fatigue would admit, as if she knew where she was going. She thought to herself that if any one remarked it would be thought she was going home to her friends, going to some warm and cheerful kent place—and she a waif and outcast on the world! When she had passed, she loitered and looked back, finding a dim corner where nobody could see her, behind the little hedge of a cottage garden. Presently a woman in a widow’s cap came briskly out to the door of the little inn, addressing a lively word or two to the loitering men, which made them move and disperse; and now was Kirsteen’s time. She hurried back and timidly approached the woman at the inn door as if she had been a princess. “Ye’ll maybe be Mistress Macfarlane?” said Kirsteen.
“I’m just that; and what may ye be wanting? Oh, I see you’re a traveller,” said the brisk landlady; “you’ll be wanting lodging for the night.”
“If you have a room ye can give me—with a bed—I’ve had a long walk—from near Loch Fyne,” said Kirsteen, feeling that explanation was necessary, and looking wistfully in the face of the woman on whom her very life seemed to depend. For what if she should refuse her, a young girl all alone, and turn her away from the door?
Mrs. Macfarlane was too good a physiognomist for that—but she looked at Kirsteen curiously in the waning light. “That’s a far way to come on your feet,” she said, “and you’re a young lass to be wandering the country by yourself.”
“I’m going—to take up a situation,” said Kirsteen. “If ye should have a room——”