He was in doubt if it might not be his best course to turn back, when a happy inspiration occurred to him.
What had the people said of Sim's shyness and timidity?
Why, it was as clear as noonday that the poor little man would try to avoid the villages by making a circuit of the fields about them.
With this conviction, Robbie set out again, intending to make no pause in his next stage until he had reached Kendal.

Upon approaching the villages he looked about for the footpaths that might be expected to describe short arcs around them; and, following one of these, he passed a cottage that stood at a corner of a lane.

He had made many fruitless inquiries hitherto, and had received replies that had been worse than valueless; but he could not resist the temptation to ask at this house.
Walking round the cottage to where the door opened on the front farthest from the lane, Robbie entered the open porch.

His unfamiliar footstep brought from an inner room an old woman with a brown and wrinkled face, who curtsied, and, speaking in a meek voice, asked, or seemed to ask, his pleasure.
"Your pardon, mistress," said Robbie, "but mayhap you've seen a little man with gray hair and a long beard going by ?" "Do you say a laal man ?" asked the old woman.
"Ey, wrinkled and wizzent a bit ?" said Robbie.
"Yes," said the woman.
Robbie was uncertain as to what the affirmation implied.

Taking it to be a sort of request for a more definite description, he continued,-- "A blate and fearsome sort of a fellow, you know." "Yes," repeated the woman, and then there was a pause.
Robbie, getting impatient of the delay, was turning on his heel with scant civility, when the old woman said, "Are you seeking him for aught that is good ?" "Why, ey, mother," said Robbie, regaining his former position and his accustomed geniality in an instant.