Page:Frank Stockton--Adventures of Captain Horn.djvu/468

ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HORN other tenants. Consequently, he had given orders to eject the old woman from her hut. She was now a pauper, and there were places where paupers would be taken care of.

The old woman stood sadly shivering. Her poor old eyes, a little dimmed with tears, were directed southward toward the far-away vanishing-point of the rough and narrow road which meandered over the moor and lost itself among the hills.

She was waiting for the arrival of a cart which a poor neighbor had promised to borrow, to take her and her few belongings to the nearest village, where there was a good road over which she might walk to a place where paupers were taken care of. A narrow stream, which roared and rushed around or over many a rock, ran at several points close to the road, and, swelled by heavy rains, had overflowed it to the depth of a foot or more. The old woman and the two men in the doorway of the hut stood and waited for the cart to come.

As they waited, heavy clouds began to rise in the north, and there was already a drizzle of rain. At last they saw a little black spot upon the road, which soon proved to be a cart drawn by a rough pony. On it came, until they could almost hear it splashing through the water where the stream had passed its bounds, or rattling over the rough stones in other places. But, to their surprise, there were two persons in the cart. Perhaps the boy Sawney had with him a traveller who was on his way north.

This was true. Sawney had picked up a traveller who was lad to find a conveyance going across the moor to his destination. This man was a quick-moving 452