They stopped at last before another of these tiny hovels, much farther up the road. A faint light struggled through the small thick panes of glass of a window little more than a half-yard square. The door opened as they drew up, and a woman came out, talking very fast and shrilly in the native Gaelic, which the children had often heard spoken, but understood scarcely at all. Elsie could make out that she was scolding very much, but that was all. As she came near her eyes fell upon the two children. She stood still for a moment, her voluble speech checked by amazement and dismay.
Elsie sprang out, and seized the moment. "We are wet through with the rain," she said; "and it is a long way yet to Killochrie. I have some pennies I will give you if you will let us stay to-night in your cottage."
The woman stood eyeing her cautiously. So little as Elsie could see of her, she was not a pleasant-looking individual. She seemed to be a big bony creature, with loose locks of hair hanging about her face, and great bare arms held a-kimbo.
"Show me the money," the woman said, holding out her hand greedily.
Elsie hesitated, for the incident with the bread made her afraid of letting her whole stock be seen, but the rain was still pouring down, and a night's shelter must be secured somehow. She drew her handkerchief out of her pocket, and untying the knots, tried to slip a few pennies out, and keep the others unobserved among the folds.
"THE CHILDREN ... MADE THEIR WAY UP TO THE COTTAGE DOOR."
But the woman watched her fumbling movements very narrowly, and suddenly made a dart at the handkerchief, chinking the copper coins together, with a rattle that betrayed them at once.
"I will take care of them," the woman said, holding out her hand. "Go in, then—you can," she added, with a shrug of the shoulder which did not express a very warm welcome.
However, there was nothing else to be done, so the children, Elsie leading Duncan by the hand, made their way up to the cottage door, while the woman went off with her husband to some unknown region, either to assist him with the horse, or, what was much more likely, to talk to him about the strange load he had brought home with him.