The Leddy was seated at her tea-table when young Walkinshaw arrived, and, as on all occasions when she had any intention in her head, she wore an aspect pregnant with importance. She was now an old woman, and had so long survived the sorrows of her widowhood, that even the weeds were thrown aside, and she had resumed her former dresses, unchanged from the fashion in which they were originally made. Her appearance, in consequence, was at once aged and ancient.
‘Come your ways, Jamie,’ said she, ‘and draw in a chair and sit down; but, afore doing sae, tell the lass to bring ben the treck-pot,’—which he accordingly did; and as soon as the treck-pot, alias teapot, was on the board, she opened her trenches.
‘Jamie,’ she began, ‘your uncle George has a great notion of you, and has done muckle for your mother, giving her, o’ his own free will, a handsome ’nuity; by the which she has brought you, and Mary your sister, up wi’ great credit and confort. I would therefore fain hope, that, in the way o’ gratitude, there will be no slackness on your part.’
James assured her that he had a very strong sense of his uncle’s kindness; and that, to the best of his ability, he would exert himself to afford him every satisfaction; but that Glasgow was not a place which he much liked, and that he would rather go abroad, and push his fortune elsewhere, than continue confined to the counting-house.
‘There’s baith sense and sadness, Jamie, in what ye say,’ replied the Leddy; ‘but I won’er what ye would do abroad, when there’s sic a bein beild biggit for you at home. Ye ken, by course o’ nature, that your uncle’s ordaint to die, and that he has only his ae dochter Beenie, your cousin, to inherit the braw conquest o’ your worthy grandfather—the whilk, but for some mistak o’ law, and the sudden o’ercome o’ death amang us, would hae been yours by right o’ birth. So that it’s in a manner pointed out to you by the forefinger o’ Providence to marry Beenie.’
James was less surprised at this suggestion than the old lady expected, and said, with a degree of coolness that she was not prepared for,—
‘I dare say what you speak of would not be disagreeable to my uncle, for several times he has himself intimated as much, but it is an event that can never take place.’
‘And what for no? I’m sure Beenie’s fortune will be a better bargain than a landless lad like you can hope for at ony other hand.’
‘True, but I’ll never marry for money.’
‘And what will ye marry for, then?’ exclaimed the Leddy. ‘Tak my word o’ experience for’t, my man,—a warm downseat’s o’ far mair consequence in matrimony than the silly low o’ love; and think what a bonny business your father and mother made o’ their gentle-shepherding. But, Jamie, what’s the reason ye’ll no tak Beenie?—there maun surely be some because for sic unnaturality?’