rise
did not soon cease, every rick would be afloat. There was little
current, however, and not half the danger there would have been had
the houses stood a few hundred yards in any direction from where
they were.

"Tak yer brakfast, John," said his sister.

"Lat them tak 'at hungers," he answered.

"Tak, or ye'll no hae the wut to save," said Jean.

Thereupon he fell to, and ate, if not with appetite, then with a
will that was wondrous.

The flood still grew, and still the rain poured, and Gibbie did not
come. Indeed no one any longer expected him, whatever might have
become of him: except by boat the Mains was inaccessible now, they
thought. Soon after breakfast, notwithstanding, a strange woman
came to the door. Jean, who opened it to her knock, stood and
stared speechless. It was a greyhaired woman, with a more
disreputable look than her weather-flouted condition would account
for.

"Gran' wither for the deuks!" she said.

"Whaur come ye frae?" returned Jean, who did not relish the freedom
of her address.

"Frae ower by," she answered.

"An' hoo wan ye here?"

"Upo' my twa legs."

Jean looked this way and that over the watery waste, and again
stared at the woman in growing bewilderment.--They came afterwards
to the conclusion that she had arrived, probably half-drunk, the
night before, and passed it in one of the outhouses.

"Yer legs maun be langer nor they luik than, wuman," said Jean,
glancing at the lower part of the stranger's person.

The woman only laughed--a laugh without any laughter in it.

"What's yer wull, noo 'at ye are here?" continued Jean with
severity. "Ye camna to the Mains to tell them there what kin' o'
wather it wis!"

"I cam whaur I cud win," answered the woman; "an' for my wull,
that's naething to naebody noo--it's no as it was ance--though, gien
I cud get it, there micht be mair nor me the better for't. An' sae
as ye wad gang the len'th o' a glaiss o' whusky--"

"Ye s' get nae whusky here," interrupted Jean, with determination.

The woman gave a sigh, and half turned away as if she would depart.
But however she might have come, it was plainly impossible she
should depart and live.

"Wuman," said Jean, "ken an' I care naething aboot ye, an' mair, I
dinna like ye, nor the luik o' ye; and gien 't war a fine simmer
nicht 'at a body cud lie thereoot, or gang the farther, I wad steek
the door i' yer face; but that I daurna dee the day again' my
neebour's soo; s