In the kitchen, the floor of which was as white as scrubbing could make it, and sprinkled with sea-sand—under the gaily-painted Dutch clock, which went on ticking as loud as ever, though just below the dead—sat a woman about sixty years of age, whose plump face to the first glance looked kindly, to the second, cunning, and to the third, evil. To the last look the plumpness appeared unhealthy, suggesting a doughy indentation to the finger, and its colour also was pasty. Her deep-set, black-bright eyes, glowing from under the darkest of eye-brows, which met over her nose, had something of a fascinating influence—so much of it that at a first interview one was not likely for a time to notice any other of her features. She rose as Miss Horn entered, buried a fat fist in a soft side, and stood silent.
“Weel?” said Miss Horn interrogatively, and was silent also.
“I thocht ye micht want a cast o’ my callin’,” said the woman.
“Na, na; there’s no a han’ ’at s’ lay finger upo’ the bairn but mine ain,” said Miss Horn. “I had it a’ ower, my lee lane, afore the skreigh o’ day. She’s lyin’ quaiet noo—verra quaiet—waitin’ upo’ Watty Witherspail. Whan he fesses hame her bit boxie, we s’ hae her laid canny intill ’t, an’ hae dune wi’ ’t.”
“Weel, mem, for a leddy-born, like yersel’, I maun say, ye tak it unco composed!”
“I’m no awaur, Mistress Catanach, o’ ony necessity laid upo’ ye to say yer min’ i’ this hoose. It’s no expeckit. But what for sud I no tak’ it wi’ composur’? We’ll hae to tak’ oor ain turn er lang, as composed as we hae the skiel o’, and gang oot like a lang-nibbit can’le—ay, an lea’ jist sic a memory ahin’ some o’ ’s, Bawby.”
“I kenna gien ye mean me, Miss Horn,” said the woman; “but it’s no that muckle o’ a memory I expec’ to lea’ ahin’ me.”
“The less the better,” muttered Miss Horn; but her unwelcome visitor went on:
“Them ’at’s maist i’ my debt kens least aboot it; and their mithers canna be said to hae muckle to be thankfu’ for. It’s God’s trowth, I ken waur nor ever I did, mem. A body in my trade canna help fa’in’ amo’ ill company whiles, for we’re a’ born in sin, an’ brocht furth in ineequity, as the Buik says; in fac’, it’s a’ sin thegither: we come o’ sin an’ we gang for sin; but ye ken the likes o’ me maunna clype (tell tales). A’ the same, gien ye dinna tak the help o’ my han’, ye winna refuse me the sicht o’ my een, puir thing!”
“There’s nane sall luik upon her deid ’at wasna a pleesur’ till her livin’; an’ ye ken weel eneuch, Bawby, she cudna thole (bear) the sicht o’ you.”