“Ah but he’s a braw laddie, and ony auld heart might weel be proud o’ raising sic a bairn,” she said to herself, as she glanced toward him once or twice while she still brushed vigorously away at the hearth, “though it’s true I never taught him the fashion he has o’ taking the chair before him that’s almost higher than his head to tilt his feet in, like a parrot fingering the trammels o’ his cage. It’s no so unco handsome as the rest o’ him, but what can a young man do, shut up in a room like this, with never a fair face to smile on him from ane years end to anither; and if he were to bring a young wife hame wi’ him, wha kens where old Joan might find hersel’ then? Na, na, it’s no change o’ that kind I’m asking, but some things ought to gae differently, for the pride o’ the house, and if he doesna see it for himsel’, why then old Joan maun e’en speak her ain thocht, that is a’.”
But the speaking did not seem so easy after all, and Joan had come fairly round before the doctor’s chair, as he had expected, hearth-broom in hand, without getting her words into shape.
This wouldn’t do. He had something to settle with Joan himself, and he must catch her in a propitious frame: at the same time he knew that if he spoke first, everything would go wrong; so without looking up from his book, he carelessly touched another that lay on the chair before him, with his foot, and down it went upon the floor, and the flood gates were opened.
“Hoot, mon!” exclaimed Joan, stooping to pick it up, and wiping it tenderly with the corner of her apron, “hoot, mon, and canna ye be content wi’ finding yoursel’ maister o’ a book like this, that not one out o’ ten thousand o’ your neebors has learning eno’ to ken the meaning o’ the very cover itsel’, that ye maun toss it under foot in sic a fashion? It’s no that I begrudge gathering it up again, but I dinna like aught belonging to yoursel’ to meet wi’ disrespect, and that’s what I’m fearing ilka day will be coming to the house, a’though no fault o’ mine. Not that I fash mysel’ sae muckle if folk maun e’en mind ither folk’s affairs, but I’m an auld woman to be keeping up the credit o’ an establishment like this.”
“You want some one to help you, Joan?”
“Help me!” exclaimed Joan indignantly, brushing her apron off sidewise with both hands, as if to brush away the aspersion, “ye ken weel enough Joan wants nae help, nor ever will, while her two hands can serve the laddie she raised up to be the learned man he is, wi’ half the city running after him to save their lives and show them the way out o’ trouble. Nae, nae, it’s no the work I’m fretting after, it’s only the gude and proper face o’ things before the een o’ the world.”
The doctor looked up at her as if he could not understand a word.
“But you’ve always been called a remarkably good-looking woman, Joan, and I don’t see that you look a day older than you did the first time I saw you.”
“Whist, mon!” and Joan brushed the apron harder than ever, “wad ye drive the patience clear frae a body? Dinna ye ken that ilka time there’s a summons for your services, if it’s the richest mon in the town sending for you to come and bring him back from the grave, there’s naebody but an auld woman with her cap and spectacles to open the door for him? The cap may be as white as snaw, but it’s no the livery that’s becoming to a skelfu’ doctor’s house, and are whose name will soon be kenned far an’ wide among the wisest o’ ’em.”
“But what would you have me do, Joan? A young doctor may have all the wisdom of Solomon, but he’s got his way to make, and his porridge to earn, for all that, and he must wait awhile before he can afford to waste his fees on the vanities of life.”