Frances noticed, by the
strong firelight, as he entered, that it was a natural cavity, and
contained nothing but a few more articles of domestic use.
The surprise of Henry and the peddler, on entering and finding Frances
in possession of the hut, may be easily imagined. Without waiting for
explanations or questions, the warm-hearted girl flew into the arms of
her brother, and gave a vent to her emotions in tears. But the peddler
seemed struck with very different feelings. His first look was at the
fire, which had been recently supplied with fuel; he then drew open a
small drawer of the table, and looked a little alarmed at finding
it empty.
"Are you alone, Miss Fanny?" he asked, in a quick voice. "You did not
come here alone?"
"As you see me, Mr. Birch," said Frances, raising herself from her
brother's arms, and turning an expressive glance towards the secret
cavern, that the quick eye of the peddler instantly understood.
"But why and wherefore are you here?" exclaimed her astonished brother;
"and how knew you of this place at all?"
Frances entered at once into a brief detail of what had occurred at the
house since their departure, and the motives which induced her to
seek them.
"But," said Birch, "why follow us here, when we were left on the
opposite hill?"
Frances related the glimpse that she had caught of the hut and peddler,
in her passage through the Highlands, as well as her view of him on that
day, and her immediate conjecture that the fugitives would seek the
shelter of this habitation for the night.
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