Macglashan walked up to the door, which hung half open, and tapped against it, but the sound was lost in a loud crackling noise, resembling a ceaseless discharge of pocket pistols, which proceeded from the interior. He tapped a second time, but the crackling continued, and, despairing of making himself heard, he stooped and entered. The apartment was so filled with smoke, that for the first few seconds he could only distinguish a red glare of light upon the hearth, and a small patch of sky, which appeared of a rusty-brown colour through the dense volume which issued out at the window. The hag sat on a low stool beside the wall, and fronting the fire, into which at intervals she flung handfuls of dried sea-weed, of that kind (_Fucus nodosus_) which consists of chains of little brown bladders filled with air, and which is used in the making of kelp. As the bladders, one after one, expanded and burst with the heat, she continued to mutter a Gaelic rhyme. The thick smoke circled round her as she bent over the fire, and when the flame shot up through the eddies, Macglashan could see her long sharp features, but when it sunk her eyes were alone visible. Her grizzled hair escaped from a red coif, and fell over her shoulders, round which there was wrapped a square of red tartan, held on by a large silver brooch. The imagination of a poet could scarcely have invested one of the ancient sibyls with more circumstances of the wild and terrible, or have placed her in a scene of a character so suited to her own. “Sad weather this,” said Macglashan;--the hag started at the unexpected address, and rising up gazed at the intruder with a mixed expression of anger and surprise. “I come,” he continued, “from _the point_, where I and my companions have been windbound for the last fortnight, and half starved with cold and hunger to boot. Could you not favour us with a breeze that would serve for Cromarty?” Without waiting a reply, he thrust into her hand the joint contribution of the crew. She spread out her palm to the light, looked at the coins, then at Macglashan, and shook her head. “For _that_!!” she said contemptuously. He shook his head in turn. “Bad times, mother, bad times; not a rap more among us; but we will not forget you should we once reach home.” “Then send one of your companions,” said the witch, “for your lugged water-stoup.”--“Ay, an’ so you know of them, and of the stoup,” muttered Macglashan;--“Jock, Sandy, this way, lads.” The two men entered the apartment. “Run, Sandy,” continued the young fellow, “for the muckle stoup,” and drawing in a huge settle of plank which stood in the middle of the floor, he seated himself, all unbidden, before the fire of _Stine Bheag_.