The moment she was at the top of the stair, he and his mother dropped each a loop over a horn.
"Noo, she'll naither stick nor fling (gore nor kick)," said Donal: she could but bellow, and paw with her fore-feet.
The strangers were mostly in Fergus's bedroom; the horses were all in their owner's; and the cattle were in the remaining rooms.
Bursts of talk amongst the women were followed by fits of silence: who could tell how long the flood might last!--or indeed whether the house might not be undermined before morning, or be struck by one of those big things of which so many floated by, and give way with one terrible crash! Mr.Duff, while preserving a tolerably calm exterior, was nearly at his wits' end.

He would stand for half an hour together, with his hands in his pockets, looking motionless out of a window, murmuring now and then to himself, "This is clean ridic'lous!" But when anything had to be done he was active enough.
Mistress Croale sat in a corner, very quiet, and looking not a little cowed.

There was altogether more water than she liked.

Now and then she lifted her lurid black eyes to Janet, who stood at one of the windows, knitting away at her master's stocking, and casting many a calm glance at the brown waters and the strange drift that covered them; but if Janet turned her head and made a remark to her, she never gave back other than curt if not rude reply.

In the afternoon Jean brought the whisky bottle.