The Sabbath morning was calm and clear, and the whole face of Nature fresh and bright. Every thing was animated with glee; and the very flowers, as they looked up in the sunshine, shone like glad faces. Even the Leddy o’ Grippy partook of the gladdening spirit which glittered and frolicked around her; and as she walked a few paces in front of her husband down the footpath from the house to the highway leading to Glasgow, she remarked, as their dog ran gambolling before them, that
‘Auld Colley, wi’ his daffing, looks as he had a notion o’ the braw wissing o’ joy Charlie is to get. The brute, gudeman, ay took up wi’ him, which was a wonderfu’ thing to me; for he did nothing but weary its life wi’ garring it loup for an everlasting after sticks and chucky-stanes. Hows’ever, I fancy dogs are like men—leavened, as Mr. Kilfuddy says, wi’ the leaven of an ungrateful heart—for Colley is as doddy and crabbit to Watty as if he was its adversary, although, as ye ken, he gathers and keeps a’ the banes for’t.’
‘Wilt t’ou ne’er devaul’ wi’ thy havering tongue? I’m sure the dumb brute, in favouring Charlie, showed mair sense than his mother, poor fellow.’
‘Aye, aye, gudeman, so ye say; but every body knows your most unnatural partiality.’
‘Thy tongue, woman,’ exclaimed her husband, ‘gangs like the clatter-bane o’ a goose’s——’
‘Eh, Megsty me!’ cried the Leddy; ‘wha’s yon at the yett tirling at the pin?’
Claud, roused by her interjection, looked forward, and beheld, with some experience of astonishment, that it was Mr. Keelevin, the writer.
‘We’ll hae to turn and gang back with him,’ said Mrs. Walkinshaw, when she observed who it was.
‘I’ll be damn’d if I do ony sic thing,’ growled the old man, with a fierceness of emphasis that betrayed apprehension and alarm, while it at the same time denoted a riveted determination to persevere in the resolution he had taken; and, mending his pace briskly, he reached the gate before the worthy lawyer had given himself admittance.
‘Gude day, Mr. Keelevin!—What’s brought you so soon afield this morning?’