She interrupted him.
“I should be glad to sit anywhere all night, where there was a fire. I am nearly frozen.”
“We can do a little better for you than that, though not so well as we should like. Perhaps, as we can’t make any show, we are the more likely to do our best for your comfort.”
Their pinched circumstances had at one time and another given rise to conversation in which the laird and his son sought together to sound the abysses of hospitality: the old-fashioned sententiousness of the boy had in it nothing of the prig.
“You are very kind. I will promise to be comfortable,” said the lady.
She began to be a trifle interested in this odd specimen of the Scotch calf.
“Welcome then to Glenwarlock!” said Cosmo. “Come, Aggie; tak ane o’ them by the heid: they’re gaein’ wi’ ’s.—We must turn the horses’ heads, my lady. I fear they won’t like to face the wind they’ve only had their backs to yet. I can’t make out whether your driver is half dead or half drunk or more than half frozen; but Aggie and I will take care of them, and if he tumble off, nobody will be the worse.”
“What a terrible country!” said the lady to herself. “The coachmen get drunk! the boys are prigs! there is no distinction between the owners of the soil and the tenants who farm it! and it snows from morning to night, and from one week’s end to another!”
Aggie had taken the head of the near horse, and Cosmo took that of the off one. Their driver said nothing, letting them do as they pleased. With some difficulty, for they had to be more than ordinarily cautious, the road being indistinguishable from the ditches they knew here bounded it on both sides, they got the carriage round. But when the weary animals received the tempest in their faces, instead of pulling they backed, would have turned again, and for some time were not to be induced to front it. Agnes and Cosmo had to employ all their powers of persuasion, first to get them to stand still, and then to advance a little. Gradually, by leading, and patting, and continuous encouraging in language they understood, they were coaxed as far as the parish road, and there turning their sides to the wind, and no longer their eyes and noses, they began to move with a little will of their own; for horses have so much hope, that the mere fact of having made a turn is enough to revive them with the expectation of cover and food and repose. They reached presently a more sheltered part of the road, and if now and then they had to drag the carriage through deeper snow, they were no longer buffeted by the cruel wind or stung by its frost-arrows.
All this time the gentleman inside slept—nor was it surprising; for, lunching at the last town, and not finding the wine fit to drink, he had fallen back upon an accomplishment of his youth, and betaken himself to toddy. That he had found that at least fit to drink was proved by the state in which he was now carried along.