‘I but bade them bide a year,’ replied Claud.
‘A year’s an unco time to love; but to make a lang tale short, what might hae been foreseen has come to pass, the fond young things hae gotten themselves married.’
‘No possible!’ exclaimed Claud, starting from his chair, which he instantly resumed.—
‘Weel,’ said Mrs. Walkinshaw,—‘if e’er I heard the like o’ that!—Our Charlie a married man! the head o’ a family!’
The old lady took no notice of these and other interjections of the same meaning, which her daughter continued to vent, but looking askance and steadily at Claud, who seemed for a minute deeply and moodily agitated, she said,—
‘Ye say nothing, Mr. Walkinshaw.’
‘What can I say?’ was his answer.—‘I had a better hope for Charlie,—I thought the year would hae cooled him,—and am sure Miss Betty Bodle would hae been a better bargain.’
‘Miss Betty Bodle!’ exclaimed the grandmother, ‘she’s a perfect tawpy.’
‘Weel, weel,’ said Grippy, ‘it mak’s no odds noo what she is,—Charlie has ravelled the skein o’ his own fortune, and maun wind it as he can.’
‘That will be no ill to do, Mr. Walkinshaw, wi’ your helping hand. He’s your first born, and a better-hearted lad never lived.’