‘I need none of your coats or blankets,’ answered the crone, in the same ungracious tones as before, ‘for water can never hurt me.’
‘Leeze me on the hag,’ muttered Lachlan to himself, ‘but she is easily maintained at any rate, and yet I would rather have a more expensive and social guest.’
The fire burned down, and Lachlan, as he occasionally glanced at the old cailleach, sitting on the opposite side of the hearth, could not help thinking that there was something altogether repulsive, if not uncanny, about her. There was a strange restlessness in her manner; her hard, dark eyes seemed to look everywhere and nowhere at the same time; while she sat rocking backwards and forwards over the ashes, and her long, crooked fingers twitched about her dun cloak in an odd and unpleasant manner. Lachlan threw another peat on the fire, and, by the reviving light, he thought the carlin’s eye had acquired a wilder and sterner expression, while a grim smile played round the corners of her ugly mouth. He rubbed his eyes and looked again, she seemed to have really grown larger in stature and more erect since he first saw her. Rousing himself, he kicked off his boots, lay down on his bed, which was only a few steps from the fire, and settled himself down to repose for the night.
Lachlan, however, could not sleep, and turned from one side to another, courting in vain the drowsy god. Glancing at his unwelcome visitor, he saw, with a feeling akin to dread, the old creature sitting more and more erect; and, rubbing his eyes, as if he felt that he was under the influence of a dream, he was exceedingly startled to find that it was no delusion, but that she was really growing, as it were, rapidly larger and sterner, under his very eyes. ‘Hout! carlin,’ he exclaimed, raising himself on his elbow, ‘you are waxing large.’
To which she replied in a hollow voice, ‘Umph, umph; omhagraich, ’s mi ’g eiridh ris a bhlath’s (Itomies and atomies—expanding to the warmth!)
Getting very drowsy, Lachlan again lay down to sleep, but presently was disturbed by a mouse coming out of a hole in the wall, and running squeaking into and across his bed, almost touching his chin. He again raised himself on his elbow, was struck with the increased proportions of the strange hag, and again exclaimed, ‘Hout, carlin! you are getting larger!’
She again replied, but in a louder and harsher tone than before, ‘Umph, umph; omhagraich, ’s mi ’g eiridh ris a bhlath’s (Itomies and atomies—expanding to the warmth!)
The fire was now nearly out, the light growing gradually less, and Lachlan became more and more sleepy. At length he began to snore gently, when all at once a spark flew out of the fire and alighted smartingly on his face. Irritated by the stinging sensation, he started, opened his eyes, and became thoroughly roused by again hearing the old hen on the cross beam above him giving a most discordant crow, though the cock uttered not a sound. He sat upright in his bed, and, in the gloom, dimly saw the strange figure extended to fearfully gigantic proportions, while her eyes no longer retained a trace of human expression, but glared upon him with preternatural brilliance and malignity.
It was now with a feeling as if his blood were ice, as if his flesh had been turned into creeping and crawling things, and as if his hair all stood on end, that Lachlan, in a tone which fear rendered nearly inaudible, said for the third time, ‘Indeed and indeed, carlin, but you have waxed very large!’
‘Umph, umph; omhagraich, ’s mi ’g eiridh ris a bhlath’s (Itomies and atomies—expanding to the warmth!) shrieked the demon in a voice so terrible that it actually frightened the very ravens in the neighbouring rocks, who flew croaking away. ‘Umph, umph; omhagraich ’s mi ’g eiridh ris a bhlath’s’ (Itomies and atomies—expanding to the warmth); and the fearful creature stood erect. She gave a horrible laugh, a snort, and a neigh of terrific sound, while her features underwent a still more appalling change. The dark-grey locks that had peeped from under her red hood, now waved a snaky mane. On the forehead of the monster was a star-like mark of bright scarlet, quivering like burning fire; the nostrils breathed, as it were, flame, whilst the eyes flashed on poor Lachlan like lightning.