The degradation of this treatment had converted Turkey into an enemy before ever he knew that we also had good grounds for disliking her.

His opinion concerning her was freely expressed to us if to no one else, generally in the same terms.

He said she was as bad as she was ugly, and always spoke of her as _the old witch_.
But what brought Turkey and us together more than anything else, was that he was as fond of Kirsty's stories as we were; and in the winter especially we would sit together in the evening, as I have already said, round her fire and the great pot upon it full of the most delicious potatoes, while Kirsty knitted away vigorously at her blue broad-ribbed stockings, and kept a sort of time to her story with the sound of her needles.

When the story flagged, the needles went slower; in the more animated passages they would become invisible for swiftness, save for a certain shimmering flash that hovered about her fingers like a dim electric play; but as the story approached some crisis, their motion would at one time become perfectly frantic, at another cease altogether, as finding the subject beyond their power of accompanying expression.

When they ceased, we knew that something awful indeed was at hand.
[Illustration] In my next chapter I will give a specimen of her stories, choosing one which bears a little upon an after adventure..