Violet Jacob > Flemington

CHAPTER XV
WATTIE HAS THEORIES
Though Skirling Wattie seldom occupied the
same bed on many consecutive nights, his various
resting-places had so great a family likeness that
he could not always remember where he was
when he chanced to wake in the small hours.
Sheds, barns, stables harboured him in the cold
months when luck was good; leanings, old
quarries, whin-patches, the alder clump beyond
Brechin, or the wall-side at Magdalen Chapel,
in the summer.
To-night he lay in the barn abutting on the
tiny farmhouse at which he had sought shelter
for Archie. He had met with a half-hearted
reception from the woman who came to the door.
Her man was away, she told him, and she was
unwilling to admit strangers in his absence. She
had never seen Wattie before, and it was plain
that she did not like his looks. He induced her
at last, with the greatest difficulty, to give shelter
in her barn to the comrade whom he described
as lying in extremity at the roadside. Finally,
she despatched her son, a youth of fifteen, to
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