I wad fain ken hoo the Maister wad hae managed wantin' onything to begin upo'.

As it was, he aye hang what he did upo' something his Father had dune afore him." "Hoots!" returned Jean, who looked upon Janet as a lover of conundrums, "ye're aye warstlin' wi' run k-nots an' teuch moo'fu's." "Ow na, no aye," answered Janet; "-- only whiles, whan the speerit o' speirin' gets the upper han' o' me for a sizon." "I doobt that same speerit 'll lead ye far frae the still watters some day, Janet," said Jean, stirring the porridge vehemently.
"Ow, I think not," answered Janet very calmly.

"Whan the Maister says--what's that to thee ?--I tak care he hasna to say't twise, but jist get up an' follow him." This was beyond Jean, but she held her peace, for, though she feared for Janet's orthodoxy, and had a strong opinion of the superiority of her own common sense--in which, as in the case of all who pride themselves in the same, there was a good deal more of the common than of the sense--she had the deepest conviction of Janet's goodness, and regarded her as a sort of heaven-favoured idiot, whose utterances were somewhat privileged.

Janet, for her part, looked upon Jean as "an honest wuman, wha 'll get a heap o' licht some day." When they had eaten their breakfast, Robert took his pipe to the barn, saying there was not much danger of fire that day; Janet washed up the dishes, and sat down to her Book; and Jean went out and in, attending to many things.
Mean time the rain fell, the wind blew, the water rose.

Little could be done beyond feeding the animals, threshing a little corn in the barn, and twisting straw ropes for the thatch of the ricks of the coming harvest--if indeed there was a harvest on the road, for, as the day went on, it seemed almost to grow doubtful whether any ropes would be wanted; while already not a few of last year's ricks, from farther up the country, were floating past the Mains, down the Daur to the sea.