ae ye can come in an' sit doon' an', my min' spoken,
ye s' get what'll haud the life i' ye, an' a puckle strae i' the
barn. Only ye maun jist hae a quaiet sough, for the gudeman disna
like tramps."

"Tramps here, tramps there!" exclaimed the woman, starting into high
displeasure; "I wad hae ye ken I'm an honest wuman, an' no tramp!"

"Ye sudna luik sae like ane than," said Jean coolly. "But come yer
wa's in, an' I s' say naething sae lang as ye behave."

The woman followed her, took the seat pointed out to her by the
fire, and sullenly ate, without a word of thanks, the cakes and milk
handed her, but seemed to grow better tempered as she ate, though
her black eyes glowed at the food with something of disgust and more
of contempt: she would rather have had a gill of whisky than all the
milk on the Mains. On the other side of the fire sat Janet,
knitting away busily, with a look of ease and leisure. She said
nothing, but now and then cast a kindly glance out of her grey eyes
at the woman: there was an air of the lost sheep about the stranger,
which, in whomsoever she might see it, always drew her affection.
"She maun be ane o' them the Maister cam' to ca'," she said to
herself. But she was careful to suggest no approach, for she knew
the sheep that has left the flock has grown wild, and is more
suspicious and easily startled than one in the midst of its
brethren.

With the first of the light, some of the men on the farm had set out
to look for Gibbie, well knowing it would be a hard matter to touch
Glashgar. About nine they returned, having found it impossible.
One of them, caught in a current and swept into a hole, had barely
escaped with his life. But they were unanimous that the dummie was
better off in any cave on Glashgar than he would be in the best
bed-room at the Mains, if things went on as they threatened.

Robert had kept on going to the barn, and back again to the kitchen,
all the morning, consumed with anxiety about the son of his old age;
but the barn began to be flooded, and he had to limit his
prayer-walk to the space between the door of the house and the chair
where Janet sat--knitting busily, and praying with countenance
untroubled, amidst the rush of the seaward torrents, the mad howling
and screeching of the wind, and the lowing of the imprisoned cattle.

"O Lord," she said in her great trusting heart, "gien my bonny man
be droonin' i' the watter, or deein' o' cauld on the hill-side, ha