air, she
covered him with her grey cloak, and he fell fast asleep. At dawn,
he woke with a start. He had dreamed that Ginevra was in trouble.
He made Janet understand that he would return to guide them home as
soon as the way was practicable, and set out at once.

The water fell rapidly. Almost as soon as it was morning, the
people at the Mains could begin doing a little towards restoration.
But from that day forth, for about a year, instead of the waters of
the Daur and the Lorrie, the house was filled with the gradually
subsiding flood of Jean's lamentations over her house-gear--one
thing after another, and twenty things together. There was scarcely
an article she did not, over and over, proclaim utterly ruined, in a
tone apparently indicating ground of serious complaint against some
one who did not appear, though most of the things, to other eyes
than hers, remained seemingly about as useful as before. In vain
her brother sought to comfort her with the assurance that there were
worse losses at Culloden; she answered, that if he had not himself
been specially favoured in the recovery of Snowball, he would have
made a much worse complaint about him alone than she did about all
her losses; whereupon, being an honest man, and not certain that she
spoke other than the truth, he held his peace. But he never made
the smallest acknowledgment to Gibbie for the saving of the said
Snowball: what could an idiot understand about gratitude? and what
use was money to a boy who did not set his life at a pin's fee? But
he always spoke kindly to him thereafter, which was more to Gibbie
than anything he could have given him; and when a man is content,
his friends may hold their peace.

The next day Jean had her dinner strangely provided. As her brother
wrote to a friend in Glasgow, she "found at the back of the house,
and all lying in a heap, a handsome dish of trout, a pike, a hare, a
partridge, and a turkey, with a dish of potatoes, and a dish of
turnips, all brought down by the burn, and deposited there for the
good of the house, except the turkey, which, alas! was one of her
own favourite flock."[3]

In the afternoon, Gibbie re-appeared at the Mains, and Robert and
Janet set out at once to go home with him. It was a long journey
for them--he had to take them so many rounds. They rested at
several houses, and saw much misery on their way. It was night
before they arrived at the cottage. They found it warm and clea