"Come in, my fine young woman. There's nothing to be freckened of."
It was Nan, the witch-doctor, and Bessie followed her into the house.
The inside was a single room with a fire at one end and a bed at the other. The floor was of hardened clay and the scraas of the roof were so low overhead that a tall man could scarcely have stood erect under them. Bundles of herbs hung from nails in the sooty rafters and when the old woman closed the door, Bessie saw that the Crosh cuirn (the cross of mountain ash) was standing at the back of it.
"I'm in trouble, ma'am," said Bessie, who was on the verge of tears, "and I'm wanting to know what to do and what is to happen to me."
The witch-doctor, whose quick eyes had taken in the situation at a glance, said,
"Aw yes, bogh, trouble enough. But knock that cat off the cheer in the choillagh and sit down and make yourself comfortable."
Bessie loosened her fur-lined cloak and sat in the ingle, with the fire at her feet and a peep of the blue sky coming down on her from the wide chimney.
"They were telling me a fine young woman was coming," said the witch-doctor (she meant the invisible powers), "and it was wondering and wondering I was would she have strength to climb the brews. But here you are, my chree, and now a cup o' tay will do no harm at all."
Bessie tried to refuse, but the old woman said,
"Chut! A cup o' tay is nothing and here's my taypot on the warm turf and the tay at the best, too."