“It is so nice to hear you speaking Scotch again,” Matilda said; “I like it so much. That word canty is such a nice word, and it is so nice to have you back again when we thought you dead; but how did it all happen? Were you not washed overboard in the storm? You must tell us all about it. How were you saved?”
“Yes,” Leila said, “it will be such an interesting story, and so long; for you must tell us every thing from the very beginning. But you are not to tell it all in one day, for that would tire you. You are very, very thin, Peggy,” and Leila took Peggy’s withered hand in hers; “can we do nothing to make you better? If it will tire you to speak, we will wait for the story till another day.”
“No, my dear bairn, it will no tire me; and it’s weel my part to do all I can to pleasure you or yours, though I will not just say but what I may feel a wee thought ashamed to tell sic a lang tale afore all the young ladies, and this fine young gentleman.”
“But Peggy,” Leila said eagerly, “he is not a fine young gentleman; he is so kind and good-natured, he will like to hear the history of all that has happened to you very much; and if he does not understand all the Scotch words, I will explain them to him afterwards; he is my brother Charles now, you need not be afraid of him.”
“Your brother, is he? Weel, weel, sae let it be for the present, my bonnie lamb. And noo where am I to begin in this lang tale?”
“At the very beginning,” Leila and Matilda both exclaimed at once; “at the very beginning, Peggy, when you first embarked with all the pets.”
“Ay, ay, and to think I hae no had the grace to ask after the puir dumb things; but I am sair bewildered, and I kent they needs be safe, for there’s my cat that was amang them, just lying afore the fire quite contented, and no ways strange, puir thing. That civil gentleman, Master Bill, (I think they call him,) brought it up to me this morning, and my trunk too with my big Bible, and all the bits o’ things that are sae valuable to me.”
“But the story, the story, Peggy,” Matilda exclaimed, rather emphatically.
“Yes, my bairn, that’s true, I was forgetting, and it’s aye the story, the story, wi’ you young things. Weel then, to begin at the very beginning, as you say. We got into the ship, (that is, the pets, as Miss Leila calls them, and me,) and it was a bonnie day, and the sea sparkling like diamonds, and wi’ a most deceitfu’ and canny look; but it was all put on; no a word o’ truth in it, for it’s a most unchancy and awfu’ element, and in no ways to be trusted by a Christian woman. Weel, my first discomfiture was when I was telt that I was by no means to go near the pets, or to take any charge, for they would have better care than mine; deed, and I was in no ways weel pleased, forbye that I had been thinking the parrots would have been gude company, and that I could hae given them some gude instruction maybe, puir things, and got them into a manner o’ more sensible discourse than aye crying, ‘pretty poll,’ and the like o’ thae vain and silly things. But it was no to be, so I turned my mind to some wee helpless bairns that were aye wailing and wearying for something; for ye ken Peggy must aye be doing. They had lost their mother, puir things, and the father o’ them was sadly put about when night came, and all their bits o’ clothes to take off, and the strings o’ them aye getting into knots, and he wi’ no manner o’ skill or judgment to gang to work in the right manner; so I took them all in my ain hands, and got them into their bits o’ cribs wi’ a kind o’ comfort, and the wee thing who was but a babby clinging round my neck in the dark, and saying, ‘Mamma was come back again, and she was no to gang away ony more.’ Deed it was just a moving scene, and minded me sae o’ my ain bonnie flowers; and John, for that was his name, was sae gratified, and could no’ say enough for the little I could do. And so we got on wi’ a measure o’ comfort all the next day, till the wind began to roar like a demented creature, wi’ no manner o’ discretion, ranting and tearing wi’ the steadfast resolution no to leave a hale rag in the ship; and there were the bairns, puir things, wailing and tumbling about on the floor, and nae marvel either, seeing that them that had come to the years o’ discretion could na keep their feet; and the captain, there was he crying to put in the dead lights, which was no just civil to say the least, and we wi’ the breath o’ life still in our bodies. Waes me, but it was an unco’ dispensation for him to be making preparations for a dead wake afore the living folk. He might hae thought, the ungodly man, that there was an arm o’ strength that could lift us out o’ the deepest pit of our tribulation.—But where was I? for ’deed I am sair bewildered wi’ all that happened.”
“You were telling about the storm, Peggy,” Matilda said, eagerly. “Oh, do go on, it is so very interesting.”