After a Lapse.
“I ha’e been thinking, Jenny,” said Alexander McCray, one afternoon, when, during intervals of taking pinches of snuff, he had mixed himself a tumbler of whisky and water, wherein floated the transparent discs of half a sliced lemon—“I ha’e been thinking, Jenny, if it wasna for Sir Mooray wanting my airm noo he’s oop again, and liking it better than that three-wheeled chair thing, I’d give oop the stewardship, and go back to my gairden.”
“Nonsense!” said Mrs McCray, smiling.
“Weel, lassie, ye may ca’ it nonsense, but I ca’ it soun’ sense, for it’s quite hairt-breaking to see the way that man neglects the floor-beds. There’s no floors noo in the gairden like there was in my day.”
“Alexander!” exclaimed his wife, jumping up, and turning him round so that he could see through the low window out into the pleasure-grounds—“you are getting in the habit of talking nonsense! Did you ever see such a flower as that in the grounds in your day?”
“Gude save us—no,” said Sandy, putting on his glasses, and a smile dawning on his rugged face—“Gude save us—no, lassie! Ye’re reet, for she’s a bonnie floor, indeed; and look at the sweet tendrils of the thing, and how she clings to the brae stake that’s goin’ to support her. Eh, lassie! but they’re a brae couple, and Heaven be gracious to them!”
“Amen!” said Jane, softly, as, with dewy eyes, she rested upon her husband’s shoulder, and continued to gaze at the sight before them.
“They say it’s a vale o’ sorrows, this warld, Jenny lassie,” said McCray, taking off and wiping his spectacles; “but to my way of thinking, it’s a verra beautiful gairden, full of bright floors and sweet rich fruits. But ye ken, lassie, that there’s that de’il—muckle sorrow to him—a’ways pitching his tares and his bad seeds ower the wall, for them to come oop in weeds; and gif ye no keep the hoe busy at wark, and bend your prood neck and stiff back to keep tearing them oop by the roots, Auld Sootie’s rubbing those hands of his at the way in which his warks run on. Perhaps ye’ll just put the whusky near by my haund. I thank ye, lassie. Winna ye tak’ a wee soopie?”
Mrs McCray declined; and after refreshing himself with a goodly draught, the old Scot continued: