“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. An’ sae as ye wad gang the len’th o’ a glaiss o’ whusky—”
“Ye s’ get nae whusky here,” interrupted Jean, with determination.
The woman gave a sigh, and half turned away as if she would depart. But however she might have come, it was plainly impossible she should depart and live.
“Wuman,” said Jean, “ken an’ I care naething aboot ye, an’ mair, I dinna like ye, nor the luik o’ ye; and gien ’t war a fine simmer nicht ’at a body cud lie thereoot, or gang the farther, I wad steek the door i’ yer face; but that I daurna dee the day again’ my neebour’s soo; sae ye can come in an’ sit doon an’, my min’ spoken, ye s’ get what’ll haud the life i’ ye, an’ a puckle strae i’ the barn. Only ye maun jist hae a quaiet sough, for the gudeman disna like tramps.”