Duncan sat huddled up in a corner, with a face that might have served for a Dutch doll, it was so blank and wooden. He was not the sort of boy to cry, but down in his heart there was a very forlorn feeling, which he would not like Elsie to have known anything about.
Presently a drop of rain spattered on to Elsie's forehead—another, and another—and then, down it came in torrents. To Elsie's despair, the horse slackened his already slow pace, and finally stood still, trembling and snorting. They were on an open road, with not even a tree near by for shelter.
"Why don't he go on?" Elsie cried out.
"The rain blinds her. She can't see," the man replied.
"Then why don't you lead her?" Elsie cried, in her peremptory fashion.
Elsie was more inclined than ever to think that the man must be a little daft. He got down, and did as she had told him. It seemed as if he had not thought of it before. He was so dazed and muddle-headed, that he would have sat apathetically on his seat, waiting for the horse to go on, although he could certainly get no wetter than he was by walking.
The rain had added the last drop to their cup of discomfort. The children were wet through in a very short time, and they were far better clad than the man.
They went along in dismal procession, all reeking wet. It was now tolerably dark, and not a soul passed them. There was clearly nothing for it but to persuade the man to take them in at his cottage. Elsie began now to wonder what sort of a place so miserable-looking a creature lived in.
During this latter part of their journey, Duncan, too, had been wondering where they would sleep; but it was no good asking, he said to himself, for if Elsie didn't know she couldn't tell him, and he supposed she'd find out some place as soon as she could.
At last Elsie, straining her eyes through the gloom, could make out a twinkling light or two, and something like a cottage. The roadside was no longer open, but had the low stone walls so familiar to Scottish eyes. As they drew near Elsie could see that the tiny tenement was only some crofter's cottage, and that the walls enclosed his bit of land, not large enough to dignify with the name of farm. Then it suddenly dawned upon her that their friend of the cart was most likely one of these crofters, whose poverty and hardships she had often heard her mother and grandmother talk of.