forepairt o' the nicht, an' maist inveesible a' day."

The girl cast a shy glance now and then at Donal, as if she claimed
him on her side, though the older people must be humoured. Donal
was not too simple to understand her: he gave her look no reception.
Bethinking himself that they might have matters to talk about, he
rose, and turning to his hostess, said,

"Wi' yer leave, gudewife, I wad gang to my bed. I hae traivelt a
maitter o' thirty mile the day upo' my bare feet."

"Eh, sir!" she answered, "I oucht to hae considert that!--Come,
yoong Eppy, we maun get the gentleman's bed made up for him."

With a toss of her pretty head, Eppy followed her grandmother to the
next room, casting a glance behind her that seemed to ask what she
meant by calling a lad without shoes or stockings a gentleman. Not
the less readily or actively, however, did she assist her
grandmother in preparing the tired wayfarer's couch. In a few
minutes they returned, and telling him the room was quite ready for
him, Doory added a hope that he would sleep as sound as if his own
mother had made the bed.

He heard them talking for a while after the door was closed, but the
girl soon took her leave. He was just falling asleep in the luxury
of conscious repose, when the sound of the cobbler's hammer for a
moment roused him, and he knew the old man was again at work on his
behalf. A moment more and he was too fast asleep for any Cyclops'
hammer to wake him.