Dougal squatted again on the hearth-rug, and gathered the eyes of
his audience. He was enjoying himself.

"This day," he said slowly, "I got inside the Hoose."

"Stout fellow," said Heritage; "and what did you find there?"

"I got inside that Hoose, but it wasn't once or twice I tried.
I found a corner where I was out o' sight o' anybody unless they had
come there seekin' me, and I sklimmed up a rone pipe, but a' the
windies were lockit and I verra near broke my neck. Syne I tried
the roof, and a sore sklim I had, but when I got there there were
no skylights. At the end I got in by the coal-hole. That's why
ye're maybe thinkin' I'm no' very clean."

Heritage's patience was nearly exhausted.

"I don't want to hear how you got in. What did you find,
you little devil?"

"Inside the Hoose," said Dougal slowly (and there was a melancholy
sense of anti-climax in his voice, as of one who had hoped to speak
of gold and jewels and armed men)--"inside that Hoose there's
nothing but two women."

Heritage sat down before him with a stern face.

"Describe them," he commanded.