‘It may be so, but when it is considered that he got the family estate by a quirk of law, he could scarcely have done less than he did for my unfortunate father’s family. But I could have forgiven all that, had he not, in a way insulting to my feelings, intimated that he expected I would break with Ellen Frazer, and offer myself to Robina.’
‘And sure am I, Jamie,’ replied the Leddy, ‘that it will be lang before you can do better.’
‘My mind, however, is made up,’ said he; ‘and to-morrow morning I shall go to Camrachle, and tell my mother that I have resolved to leave Glasgow.—I will never again set my foot in the counting-house.’
‘Got ye ony drink, Jamie, in the gait hame, that ye’re in sic a wud humour for dancing “Auld Sir Simon the King”, on the road to Camrachle?—Man, an I had as brisk a bee in the bonnet, I would set aff at ance, cracking my fingers at the moon and seven stars as I gaed louping alang.—But, to speak the words of soberness, I’m glad ye hae discretion enough to tak a night’s rest first.’
‘Do not think so lightly of my determination—It is fixed—and, from the moment I quitted Kittlestonheugh, I resolved to be no longer under any obligation to my uncle—He considers me as a mere passive instrument for his own ends.’
‘Hech, sirs! man, but ye hae a great share o’ sagacity,’ exclaimed the Leddy; ‘and because your uncle is fain that ye should marry his only dochter, and would, if ye did sae, leave you for dowry and tocher a braw estate and a bank o’ siller, ye think he has pookit you by the nose.’
‘No—not for that; but because he thinks so meanly of me, as to expect that, for mercenary considerations, I would bargain away both my feelings and my principles.’
‘Sure am I he would ne’er mint ony sic matter,’ replied the Leddy; ‘and if he wantit you to break wi’ yon galloping nymph o’ the Highland heather, and draw up wi’ that sweet primrose-creature, your cousin Beenie, wha is a lassie o’ sense and composity, and might be a match to majesty, it was a’ for your honour and exaltation.’
‘Don’t distress me any further with the subject,’ said he. ‘Will you have the goodness to let me stay here to-night? for, as I told you, there shall never now be any addition made to the obligations which have sunk me so low.’
‘’Deed, my lad, an ye gang on in that deleerit manner, I’ll no only gie you a bed, but send baith for a doctor and a gradawa, that your head may be shaved, and a’ proper remedies—outwardly and inwardly—gotten to bring you back to a right way o’ thinking. But to end a’ debates, ye’ll just pack up your ends and your awls and gang hame to Mrs. Spruil’s, for the tow’s to spin and the woo’s to card that ’ill be the sheets and blankets o’ your bed in this house the night—tak my word for’t.’