caught hold of the eaves, and scrambled on to the roof. But in the
folly and faithlessness of her despair, the woman would not let him
enter. With a curse caught from her husband, she struck him from
the window, crying,

"Ye s' no come in here, an' my man droonin' yon'er! Gang till 'im,
ye cooard!"

Never had poor Gibbie so much missed the use of speech. On the
slope of the roof he could do little to force an entrance, therefore
threw himself off it to seek another, and betook himself to the
windows below. Through that of Angus's room, he caught sight of a
floating anker cask. It was the very thing!--and there on the walls
hung a quantity of nets and cordage! But how to get in? It was a
sash-window, and of course swollen with the wet, therefore not to be
opened; and there was not a square in it large enough to let him
through. He swam to the other side, and crept softly on to the
roof, and over the ridge. But a broken slate betrayed him. The
woman saw him, rushed to the fire-place, caught up the poker, and
darted back to defend the window.

"Ye s' no come in here, I tell ye," she screeched, "an' my man
stickin' i' yon boortree buss!"

Gibbie advanced. She made a blow at him with the poker. He caught
it, wrenched it from her grasp, and threw himself from the roof.
The next moment they heard the poker at work, smashing the window.

"He'll be in an' murder's a'!" cried the mother, and ran to the
stair, while the children screamed and danced with terror.

But the water was far too deep for her, She returned to the attic,
barricaded the door, and went again to the window to watch her
drowning husband.

Gibbie was inside in a moment, and seizing the cask, proceeded to
attach to it a strong line. He broke a bit from a fishing-rod,
secured the line round the middle of it with a notch, put the stick
through the bunghole in the bilge, and corked up the hole with a
net-float. Happily he had a knife in his pocket. He then joined
strong lines together until he thought he had length enough, secured
the last end to a bar of the grate, and knocked out both sashes of
the window with an axe. A passage thus cleared, he floated out
first a chair, then a creepie, and one thing after another, to learn
from what point to start the barrel. Seeing and recognizing them
from above, Mistress Mac Pholp raised a terrible outcry. In the
very presence of her drowning husband, such a wanton dissipation of
her property rous