more questions, proceeded to show him the job
he wanted done to his plough, and from one thing to another, the young
man undertook to accomplish it in a few hours, if the master of the shed
would permit. Shanty did by no means seem pleased, and yet could not
refuse to oblige Mr. Dymock; he, however, remarked, that if the coulter
was destroyed, it was no odds to him. The young stranger, however, soon
made it appear that he was no mean hand at the work of a blacksmith; he
had not only strength, but skill and ingenuity, and in a short time had
so deeply engaged the attention of Dymock by his suggestions of
improvements to this same plough, that the young laird saw none but him,
and allowed the evening to close in, and the darkness of night to cover
the heath, whilst still engaged in talking to the stranger, and
hearkening to his ingenious comments on the machinery of the plough.

In the meantime, although the sun had set in golden glory, dark and
dense clouds had covered the heavens, the wind had risen and whistled
dismally over the moor, and a shower of mingled rain and sleet blew into
the shed, one side of which was open to the air. It was in the midst of
this shower, that a tall gaunt female, covered with a ragged cloak, and
having one child slung on her back, and another much older in her hand,
presented herself at the door of the shed, and speaking in a broad
northern dialect, asked permission to shelter herself and her bairns,
for a little space in the corner of the hut. Neither Dymock nor the
young man paid her any regard, or seemed to see her, but Shanty made her
welcome, and pointing to a bench which was within the glow of the fire
of the forge, though out of harm's way of sparks or strokes, the woman
came in, and having with the expertness of long use, slung the child
from her back into her arms, she sate down, laying the little one across
her knee, whilst the eldest of the two children dropped on the bare
earth with which the shed was floored, and began nibbling a huge crust
which the mother put into his hand.

In the meantime, work went on as before the woman had come in, nor was a
word spoken, till Shanty, looking up from the horse-shoe which he was
hammering, remarked in his own mind, that he wondered that the little
one stretched on the woman's knee, was not awakened and frightened by
the noise of the forge; but there the creature lies, he thought, as if
it had neither sense or hearing. When this strange tho