“Are you loving King Charles?” demanded Ronald.
“Ou, aye,” murmured Kelpie vaguely and hastened to turn the question. “Are you?” she countered.
“As ever was!” they chorused instantly. “Is he not our King, and a Stewart, besides?”
Well, Kelpie had already known that Glenfern was pro-Royalist. “And so the King is always right?” she pursued, trying to think what else to ask.
“Och, no!” said the twins in surprise. “No one is always right,” they informed her gravely. “Except,” they added, “for Father.”
Kelpie put her shuttle through the wrong way and had to take it out again, her lip twitching ever so slightly. The twins, having settled that subject of conversation, looked at her hopefully. “Can you,” they asked, “tell us a story?”
Now if there was one thing Kelpie could do better than any other, it was to tell stories—pathetic tales to earn sympathy or a copper, outrageous lies to escape impending trouble, embroidered yarns of her own adventures, old gypsy stories, eerie folk tales of the wee people and other uncanny beings, or fanciful bits and snatches that she wove for herself among the hills or beside the campfire. Her eyes sparkled. “Fine I can that!” she asserted and dropped her voice to an eerie pitch.
“Have you ever,” she whispered, “heard of the uruisg of Glenlyon?”
They shook their heads and drew their stools nearer.
“Well, then.” Kelpie paused, shuttle in hand. “It was a farmer’s wife who was making porridge for breakfast on a wet morning, when who should come walking in but an uruisg. Och, a slippery, damp, uncouth monster he was, half man and half goat; and wasn’t he just sitting himself down at the fire to dry, and not so much as a wee greeting to her? Well, the farmer’s wife was fair angered at his impertinence, and she having to step over and around him every minute, so presently she just lifted a ladle of the boiling porridge from the pot over the fire, and poured it over him, just. Well, at that he leaped up, howling, and ran out the door and never dared set foot in that house again....”