With some trouble, they lighted a fire and, sitting down close by, took out the food they had brought.

The wind screamed about the ruined walls, the smoke eddied round them, and now and then a shower of snow fell on their heads, but they had some shelter and could, if forced, wait for morning.
"Miss Osborn's a bonny lass and kind; but I reckon she couldn't talk her father round," Tom presently remarked.
"No," said Kit.

"I believe she tried." "Favors her mother," Tom resumed.

"Mrs.Osborn's heart is good, but at Tarnside women dinna count.

It's a kind o' pity, because t' Osborn menfolk are lakers and always was." A _laker_ is a lounging pleasure-seeker and Kit admitted that the remark was justified.
"I sometimes think Osborn means well," he said.
"Mayhappen! For aw his ordering folks aboot, he's wake; like his father, I mind him weel.