Their breakfast consisted of some thin watery porridge, without bread, sugar, or milk.
When their scanty meal was ended, Mrs. Ferguson ordered them to go out and help Sandy Ferguson, her husband, who was waiting outside for them. At first Elsie felt disposed to refuse, but on second thoughts, she obeyed. Sandy Ferguson was on the spot, his wife in the kitchen, with the cottage door open, their two boys about here, there, and everywhere.
To get away unperceived was out of the question, besides the serious matter of losing their garments, which Elsie had not yet been able to discover.
So they had to work away in company with the two ragged urchins. Elsie was boiling with rage, but she hid it as well as she could; and as for poor Duncan, he worked away without uttering a word, but with only an occasional inquiring glance at Elsie, which was infinitely touching.
Elsie soon perceived that there would be no chance of their pursuing their journey that day. Mrs. Ferguson protested that she was getting their things dried as fast as she could, and would say nothing more; but Elsie had a keen misgiving that for some reason or other she did not mean to let them go.
Was it possible that she knew anything of their mother, and was thinking to send them back? or did she only mean to keep them there, and make them work for her family?
At times Elsie felt a terrible fear creeping over her that these dreadful people meant to steal or hurt her and Duncan. "Perhaps she wants our clothes," Elsie thought, "for she knows we have no more pennies!"
So she took the first opportunity she could find to tell Mrs. Ferguson that they didn't think they could wait any longer for their things to get dry; they could easily get some more at Killochrie. She said this with an air of indifference. She would put her jacket on over her stuff petticoat, and that would do very well. Duncan could wear the cotton jacket, and leave his tweed one behind.
But all this made no impression on Mrs. Ferguson. She only laughed grimly to herself; and as their things were not forthcoming, Elsie might as well have spared her generosity. If she could only have found her jacket she would have been contented, but this, too, had disappeared, and even if she had found the opportunity, Elsie would hardly have had the courage to go on her way with Mrs. Ferguson's dirty tattered gown tucked up and pinned together about her.
By-and-by Elsie began to think she saw what Mrs. Ferguson was thinking of. She noticed that she frequently looked along the road, and carefully watched for any vehicle whose wheels sounded in the distance. "She thinks mother'll come and fetch us," Elsie said to herself, "or at least the woman that I told her I lived with; but she'll never come here after us, that's certain."