“Yes, Archie, I need comfort more; but mind you, brother, the day may come when you’ll want comfort of this kind too.”
Old Kate really was a queer old witch of a creature, superstitious to a degree. Here is an example: One day she came rushing—without taking time to knock even—into the breakfast parlour.
“Oh, Mistress Broadbent, what a ghast I’ve gotten!”
“Dear me!” said the Squire’s wife; “sit down and tell us. What is it, poor Kate?”
“Oh! Oh!” she sighed. “Nae wonder my puir legs ached. Oh! sirs! sirs!
“Ye ken my little pantry? Well, there’s been a board doon on the fleer for ages o’ man, and to-day it was taken out to be scrubbit, and what think ye was reveeled?”
“I couldn’t guess.”
“Words, ’oman; words, printed and painted on the timmer—‘Sacred to the Memory of Dinah Brown, Aged 99.’ A tombstone, ’oman—a wooden gravestone, and me standin’ on’t a’ these years.”
Here the Squire was forced to burst out into a hearty laugh, for which his wife reprimanded him by a look.