After all, I reflected, the worst bedlamite must have food and shelter, and, unless the gleam had been a will-o'-the-wisp, I foresaw a fire.

So I hastened in the direction of the noise.
I came on it suddenly in a hollow of the moss.

There stood a ruined sheepfold, and in the corner of two walls some plaids had been stretched to make a tent.

Before this burned a big fire of heather roots and bog-wood, which hissed and crackled in the rain.

Round it squatted a score of women, with plaids drawn tight over their heads, who rocked and moaned like a flight of witches, and two--three men were on their knees at the edge of the ashes.