‘I wish, Isabella,’ said he, ‘that this business of ours were well settled, for I begin, on your account, to grow anxious. I am not superstitious; but I kenna what’s in’t—every now and then a thought comes over me that I am no to be a long liver—I feel, as it were, that I have na a firm grip of the world—a sma’ shock, I doubt, would easily shake me off.’
‘I must own,’ replied his wife with softness, ‘that we have both some reason to regret our rashness. I ought not to have been so weak as to feel the little hardships of my condition so acutely; but, since it is done, we must do our best to bear up against the anxiety that I really think you indulge too much. My advice is, that we should give up speaking about your father’s intents, and strive, as well as we can, to make your income, whatever it is, serve us.’
‘That’s kindly said, my dear Bell, but you know that my father’s no a man that can be persuaded to feel as we feel, and I would not be surprised were he to break up his partnership with me, and what should we then do?’
In this sort of anxious and domestic conversation, they approached towards Grippy House, where they were met on the green in front by Margaret and George, who had not seen them since their marriage. Miss Meg, as she was commonly called, being at the time on a visit in Argyleshire with a family to whom their mother was related, the Campbells of Glengrowlmaghallochan, and George was also absent on a shooting excursion with some of his acquaintance at the Plealands, the mansion-house of which happened to be then untenanted. Their reception by their brother and sister, especially by Miss Meg, was kind and sisterly, for although in many points she resembled her mother, she yet possessed much more warmth of heart.
The gratulations and welcomings being over, she gave a description of the preparations which had already commenced for Walter’s wedding.
‘Na, what would ye think,’ said she, laughing, ‘my father gied him ten pounds to gang intil Glasgow the day to buy a present for the bride, and ye’ll hardly guess what he sent her,—a cradle,—a mahogany cradle, shod wi’ roynes, that it may na waken the baby when it’s rocking.’
‘But that would na tak all the ten pounds?’ said Charles, diverted by the circumstance; ‘what has he done wi’ the rest?’
‘He could na see any other thing to please him, so he tied it in the corner of his napkin, but as he was coming home flourishing it round his head, it happened to strike the crookit tree at the water-side, and the whole tot o’ the siller, eight guineas, three half-crowns, and eighteenpence, played whir to the very middle o’ the Clyde. He has na got the grief o’ the loss greetten out yet.’
Before there was time for any observation to be made on this misfortune, the bridegroom came out to the door, seemingly in high glee, crying, ‘See what I hae gotten,’ showing another note for ten pounds, which his father had given to pacify him, before Kilmarkeckle and the bride arrived; they being also expected to dinner.
It happened that Isabella, dressed in her gayest apparel for this occasion, had brought in her hand, wrapt in paper, a pair of red morocco shoes, which, at that period, were much worn among lairds’ daughters; for the roads, being deep and sloughy, she had, according to the fashion of the age, walked in others of a coarser kind; and Walter’s eye accidentally lighting on the shoes, he went up, without preface, to his sister-in-law, and, taking the parcel gently out of her hand, opened it, and contemplating the shoes, holding one in each hand at arm’s length, said, ‘Bell Fatherlans, what will ye tak to sell thir bonny red cheeket shoon?—I would fain buy them for Betty Bodle.’