On the table were a whisky bottle and a glass. He indicated them with a sweep of his hand. “Have a nip. Warm you up, miss.”
“No, thanks. I’m all right.”
Over her stole a delightful lassitude, the reaction from her fight with the storm. She looked sleepily into the live coals. The howling of the storm outside was deadened enough to make a sort of lullaby. Her head began to nod and her eyelids closed. With a start she brought herself awake again.
“Didn’t know I was so done up,” she murmured.
“ ’S all right. Sleep if you want to, miss,” the man told her.
Not for an hour or more did she open her eyes again. The table was set for a meal. A coffeepot was heating on some coals and a black kettle hung suspended from a crane above the fire.
“Come an’ get it, miss,” the man said gruffly when he saw that she was awake.
Vicky discovered that she was hungry. She drank the coffee he poured out and ate the stew he ladled from the kettle. He did not eat with her.
“If the storm would break I’d try to reach town,” she said presently.
“No chance. You stay here where you’re safe, miss.”