Allan, thinking of Maggie’s comfort, watched Aunt Janet’s arrival with much interest. She was a tall, thin woman, dressed in homespun linsey, with a ruffled linen cap upon her head, and a faded tartan plaid about her shoulders. David’s offer had been a great piece of good fortune to her, but she had no intention of letting the obligation rest on her side. Her first words on landing were a complaint.
“I ne’er was on such an upsetting sea, niece Maggie. It’s vera seldom I hae the grievous prostration o’ the sea sickness, but the boat was ill rigged and waur managed, and if I hadna been a vera Judith in fortitude, I wad hae just turned round about, and gane my ways hame again.”
“The ‘Allan Campbell’ is thought to be a fine boat, aunt.”
“Fife fishers dinna ken a’ things.”
“They’ll ken aboot boats, though.”
“They may. I’m no sae sure. They lose a gude many every year that comes to them.”
“How is Aunt Margery?”
“Her man has got into the excise. She holds her head as high as a hen drinking water aboot it. I never could abide pride o’ any kind. It’s no in me to think mair o’ mysel’ than other folks think o’ me.”
Allan joined the family party in the evening, and he did his best to win Janet Caird’s favor, and conciliate her numerous prejudices. But unfortunately she intercepted a glance intended for Maggie, and her suspicions were at once roused. Young people, in her opinion, were full of original and acquired sins, and she made up her mind in a moment that David had suspected his sister’s propriety, and was anxious to shelter her under the spotless integrity of Janet Caird’s good name.
“And for the sake o’ the family I sall watch her well,” she decided; “she sall na lightly either the Cairds or the Promoters if I ken mysel’”: and from the moment of that resolve, Allan was ranged in her mind, “among the wolves that raven round the fold.”