Explore "Flemington" by Violet Jacob on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
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; loanings, 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 accompany the beggar, and to help to bring the sufferer back.