I had given up hope, and my angry cooks were left to look better after the joints that were to be used in future, when one night I happened to go into the shop of Mr M‘Dougal at the foot of the High Street. There were several people in the shop, and I stood back, not to avoid the gaze of Mrs Biddy Riddel of the Fountain Close, (her maiden name was O’Neil), who didn’t look for me, and didn’t see me, for, in truth, I was after no game that evening, but merely to avoid interfering with the customers. Now was Biddy’s turn to be served.
“Half an ounce ov good tay—an ounce ov sugar—and an ounce ov raal Durham musthard,” said she.
The purchase struck me as being singular, and I’m sure the grocer was of the same opinion. I was perfectly aware that she was of the class of the half-ounce-of-tea-and-glass-of-whisky buyers, and if she had asked the whisky I would have considered the purchase as quite in the ordinary way, but the “raal Durham” was quite another thing, and I could account for it nohow.
I saw that the grocer had looked at Biddy when she asked the mustard, just as if he felt inclined to ask what she was to do with so large a quantity, nay, any quantity, however small, but he proceeded without saying a word to tie up the tea and the sugar, then, coming to the third article,
“Did you say an ounce of mustard, Mrs Riddel?”
“Ay, raal Durham.”
“Why, that will go a far way with you,” said Mr M‘Dougal, as he looked over to me, and laughed—a kind of interference with the rights of trade that Biddy did not seem to relish.
“Wid me?” she said; “and why wid me? Shure, couldn’t I buy a pound ov it if I chose?”
“And most happy would I be to sell it to you,” was the reply.
“Ay, and I may need a pound ov it too,” she continued, “if it doesn’t plase the Lord to be kinder to me; for hasn’t Willie caught a terrible cowld, and amn’t I to put a blisther on his throat this blissid night?”