Marjory gave her a queer look. "Everything! it's going to be a fine day for one thing."
"Wha kens? That's no a thing ye can say at half-past eight o' the clock. Sing you the 'Flowers of the Forest,' my bairn; that's more o' the truth in this world."
Her old, faded voice quavered over the first line, "I've seen the morning, wi' gold the hills adorning," and Marjory's clear, young one took up the song cheerfully, "And loud tempest storming before the mid o' day." Then she paused mischievously. "That's a foolish version, though; the old one is better: 'I've heard the lilting at our yowe milking, Lassies a' lilting before the dawn o' day.' And dawn is before half-past eight o' the clock, even in November."
Mrs. Cameron looked at her somewhat mollified, beating time with her mittened fingers to the familiar rhythm.
"Weel! weel! One way or the t'ither it's the bonniest song ever sung in this world, and I mind, when I was a lassie, thinkin' that my jo--he wasna John, my dear,--sang it like the angels out o' heaven. But there! commend me to a lassie that's in love wi' the most ordinair' o' men for a blaspheemous sacrileegous creature, if he's weel favoured, and that's the truth. There isn't one o' the cardinal virtues, but she'll dig up--maybe from some ither decent man's kale yard and plant it amang his weeds wi' a light heart. Aye! and watter it wi' tears too when she finds it no thrivin'. It's the way o' women, and she's happier when she gives up the gairdening and sets to rear bairns instead."
"I wish Will could hear you admit that children are a comfort," laughed Marjory, from her porridge.
"And what's hindering him but sloth?" asked the old lady, rushing eagerly to an old battle ground. "But there! was it not predicted as the end o' a' things. Just a great Darkness as o' Night, and that is what folks is coming to nowadays. It just beats me to roust the hussies from their beds before six. And it's no from them bein' hirelings a'together, for it's the same with the cottages. Where the peat smoke used to go up wi' the mist wreaths at the earliest blink, there's naething but an empty lum. Aye! and a cauld hearth! Not even a gathering peat to keep the warmth o' home aboot the place. But there! what could ye expec' wi' such names as they give the matches--Lucifers and Damnstickers."
"My dear mother!" exclaimed Will, in horrified accents, as he lounged in lazily.
"I'm no swearing, William," she retorted, with great dignity. "Tho' maybe I hae a claim to be angry an' sin not, wi' a farmer son that comes down to his breaking o' bread when the beasts have begun to chew the cud."
"My dear mother!" quoth Will, good-naturedly. "You look after the beasts, and my corn is all carried."