‘Haud your tongue, and dinna terrify folk wi’ ony sic impossibility!’ exclaimed the Leddy—‘Poor man, he has something else to think o’ at present. Is na your aunty brought nigh unto the gates o’ death? Would ye expek him to be thinking o’ marriage settlements and wedding banquets, when death’s so busy in his dwelling? Ye’re an unfeeling creature, Jamie—But the army’s the best place for sic graceless getts. Whan do ye begin to spend your half-crown out o’ saxpence a day? And is Nell Frizel to carry your knapsack? Weel, I ay thought she was a cannonading character, and I’ll be none surprised o’ her fighting the French or the Yanky Doodles belyve, wi’ a stone in the foot of a stocking, for I am most creditably informed, that that’s the conduct o’ the soldier’s wives in the field o’ battle.’
It was never very easy to follow the Leddy, when she was on what the sailors call one of her jawing tacks; and Walkinshaw, who always enjoyed her company most when she was in that humour, felt little disposed to interrupt her. In order, however, to set her off in a new direction, he said,—‘But, when I get my appointment, I hope you’ll give me something to buy a sword, which is the true bride o’ a soldier.’
‘And a poor tocher he gets wi’ her,’ said the Leddy;—‘wounds and bruises, and putrefying sores, to make up a pack for beggary. No doubt, howsever, but I maun break the back o’ a guinea for you.’
‘Nay, I expect you’ll give your old friend, Robin Carrick, a forenoon’s call. I’ll not be satisfied if you don’t.’
‘Well, if e’er I heard sic a stand-and-deliver-like speech since ever I was born,’—exclaimed his grandmother. ‘Did I think, when I used to send the impudent smytcher, wi’ my haining o’ twa-three pounds to the bank, that he was contriving to commit sic a highway robbery on me at last?’
‘But,’ said Walkinshaw, ‘I have always heard you say, that there should be no stepbairns in families. Now, as you are so kind to Robina and Walky, it can never be held fair if you tie up your purse to me.’
‘Thou’s a wheedling creature, Jamie,’ replied the Leddy, ‘and nae doubt I maun do my duty, as every body knows I hae ay done, to a’ my family; but I’ll soon hae little to do’t wi’, if the twa new married eating moths are ordain’t to devour a’ my substance. But there’s ae thing I’ll do for thee, the whilk may be far better than making noughts in Robin Carrick’s books. I’ll gang out to the Kittlestonheugh, and speer for thy aunty; and though thy uncle, like a bull of Bashan, said he would not speak to me, I’ll gar him fin’ the weight o’ a mother’s tongue, and maybe, through my persuadgeon, he may be wrought to pay for thy sword and pistols, and other sinews o’ war. For, to speak the truth, I’m wearying to mak a clean breast wi’ him, and to tell him o’ his unnaturality to his own dochter; and what’s far waur, the sin, sorrow, and iniquity, of allooing me, his aged parent, to be rookit o’ plack and bawbee by twa glaikit jocklandys that dinna care what they burn, e’en though it were themselves.’
But, before the Leddy got this laudable intention carried into effect, her daughter-in-law, to the infinite consternation of Dirdumwhamle, died; and, for some time after that event, no opportunity presented itself, either for her to be delivered of her grudge, or for any mutual friend to pave the way to a reconciliation. Young Mrs. Milrookit saw her mother, and received her last blessing; but it was by stealth, and unknown to her father. So that, altogether, it would not have been easy, about the period of the funeral, to have named in all the royal city a more constipated family, as the Leddy assured all her acquaintance, the Walkinshaws and Milrookits, were, baith in root and branch, herself being the wizent and forlorn trunk o’ the tree.