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.