John Smith was preparing to answer and to explain, and to defend himself from these absurd and unjust imputations against him, when he heard the sound of a bolt drawn in the hovel immediately behind him. Full of hope that some good and charitable Christian within, melted by his pitiful petitions, had come to the resolution of opening his door to relieve him, he turned hastily round. But what was his mortification, when, instead of seeing the door opened, he beheld the small wooden shutter of an unglazed hole in the wall, slowly and silently pushed outwards on its hinges, until it fell aside, and then the muzzle of a rusty fowling-piece was gradually projected, levelled, and pointed at him. John waited not to allow him who held it to perfect his aim. He sprang instantly aside towards the wall, and fortunately, the tardy performance of the old and ill constructed lock enabled him to do so, just in time to clear the way for the shower of swan-shot which the gun discharged in a diagonal line across the way. Luckily for John, he had thus no opportunity of judging of the weight of the charge in his own person, but he was made sufficiently aware that it was quite potent enough, by its effects on an unfortunate sheep-dog, that happened to be at that moment lying peaceably gnawing a bone on the top of a dunghill, some fifty yards down the road, on the opposite side of the way to that where the hovel stood from which the shot had been fired. The poor animal sprang up, and gave a loud and sharp yelp, when he received the shot, and then followed a long and dismal howl, after which he rolled over on his back and died. After such a hint as this, John staid not to make farther experiments on the hospitality of the little place, but, getting out at the farther end of its street with all manner of expedition, he slowly proceeded on his way, weary, faint, and heart-sunken.
Just as sunset was approaching, he came to the door of a small single cottage, hard by the way-side. There he knocked gently, without saying a word.
“Who is there?” asked a soft woman’s voice in Gaelic, from within.
“A poor man like to die with hunger and thirst,” replied John in the same language. “For the love of God give me a piece of bread, and a drink of water.”
“You shant want that,” said the good Samaritan woman within, who promptly came to undo the door.
“Heaven reward you!” said John fervently, as she was fumbling with the key in the key-hole, and with an astonishing rapidity of movement in his ideas, he felt, by anticipation, as if he was already devouring the food he had asked for.
“Preserve us, what’s that?” cried the woman, the moment the half-opened door had enabled her to catch a glimpse of his fearful head and bloody features.
The door was shut and locked in an instant; and whether it was that the poor young lonely widow, for such she was, had fainted or not, or whether she had felt so frightened for herself and her young child, that she dared not to speak, all John’s farther attempts to procure an answer from her were fruitless. It was probably from the cruel and unexpected disappointment that he here had met with, just at the time when his hopes of relief had been highest, that his faintness came more overpoweringly upon him. He tottered away from the widow’s door, with his head swimming strangely round, and he had not proceeded above two or three dozen of steps, when he sank down on a green bank by the side of the road, where he lay almost unconscious as to what had befallen him.
He had not lain long there, when the tender hearted widow, who had reconnoitred him well through a single pane of glass in the gable end of her house, began to have her fears overcome by her compassion. Seeing that he was now at some distance from her dwelling, she ventured again to open her door, and perceiving that he did not stir, she retired for a minute, and then reappeared with a bottle of milk and two barley cakes, with which she crept timorously, and therefore slowly and cautiously, along the road. Her step became slower and slower, as, with fear and trembling, she drew near to John. At last, when within three or four yards of him, she halted, and, looking back, as if to measure the distance that divided her from her own door, she turned towards him, and ventured to address him.
“Here, poor man,” said she, setting down the cakes and the bottle of milk on the bank. “Here is some refreshment for you.”