, I found my foot worse,
and had to go slow and take many a rest. When the gloaming came I was on
the look out for a place to pass the night. On finding a cosey spot
behind a clump of bushes, I took my supper, lay down, and fell asleep,
for I was dead weary. The whistling of a blackbird near my head woke me
and I saw the sun was getting high. My foot was much worse, but I had to
go on. Taking from my bundle of provisions as sparingly as my hunger
would let me, I started. It was another fine day and had my hurt foot
been well I thought I would reach my mother's parish before long. I
could not walk, I just limped. Carts passed me, but would not give me a
lift. My bare feet and head and ragged clothes made them suspicious, and
as for the gentlemen in gigs they did not look at me. When I came to
spring or burn I put my foot in it, for it was hot and swollen now. At
noon I finished the food in my bundle and went on. I had not gone far
when I had to stop, and was holding my sore foot in a spring when a
tinker came along. He asked what was wrong. Drawing a long pin out of
his coat collar he felt along the cut, and then squeezed it hard. I see
it now, he remarked, and fetching from his pouch a pair of pincers he
pulled from the cut a sliver of glass. Wrapping the cloth round it he
tied it with a bit of black tape, and told me if I kept dirt out it
would heal in a day or two. Asking me where I was going, we had some
talk. He told me the parish of Dundonald was a long way off and he did
not know anybody in it by the name of Askew. I was on the right road and
could find out when I got there. He lit his pipe and left me. I walked
with more ease, and the farther I went the hungrier I grew. Coming to a
house by the side of the road I went to the open door and asked for a
cake. I have nothing for beggars, cried a woman by the fire. I am no
beggar, I answered, I will pay you, and held out a halfpenny. She stared
at me. Take these stoups and fill them at the well. The hill was steep
and the stoups heavy, but I managed to carry them back one at a time and
placed them on the bench. She handed me a farl of oatcake and I went
away. It was the sweetest bite I ever got. It was not nearly dark when I
climbed a dyke to get into a sheltered nook and fell asleep. Something
soft and warm licking my face woke me. It was a dog and it was broad
day. What are you doing here, laddie? said the dog's master who was a
young fellow, perhaps six or seven year