Chapter 16 MASTER RANTY.

"A rare compound of oddity, frolic and fun."

Goldsmith.

A little, old, decrepit woman, bent double with age, leaning on a staff, and shaking with palsy, stood as suddenly before them as if she had sprung up through the earth. Her dress was the most astonishing complication of rags that ever hung together on a human back before. A long old-fas