"Have ye got any cockles to-day?" she inquired at length.

"Nay, I haven't," responded the girl rudely; "an' if I had you
shouldn't ha' none."

"My word!" exclaimed Jinny angrily, "ye might as well keep a civil
tongue i' your 'ead. I don't want none o' your cockles, as it jest
falls out--my 'usband's gone to get me some."

"Your 'usband," repeated the girl, clapping her hands together in what
Jinny thought a very odd and uncalled-for way. "Your 'usband!"

Jinny felt very uncomfortable; the girl's demeanour was so strange
that she began to think she had been drinking. Hastily collecting
John's socks and boots she scrambled to her feet.

"He's gone cocklin', has he?" inquired Sally, fixing those queer blue
eyes of hers on the wife's face with an extraordinary expression; "an'
you're takkin' care o's shoon till he cooms back? Ha! ha!--happen
he'll ne'er coom back."

Jinny turned very red and walked indignantly away; most certainly the
girl was either mad or drunk. "Happen he'll ne'er coom back," indeed!
Such impudence! Jinny did not quite like being left alone with her in
that solitary place, and partly on this account, partly to disprove
her ridiculous assertion, bent her steps towards the shore, calling
loudly to her husband to return.

But a fresh breeze was blowing, and the waves were leaping shoreward