Bell was now inside, and evidently had not the same high estimate of the cleanness of the house as May had.
“Let’s see,” said she as she sniffed about. “May, it’s hardly just that; it’s rather like the ‘Willie Cossar’ (an old name for a large-sized pin) that Dan used to pick his pipe wi’, an’ hit was very dim,—yellow, green, an’ a’ colours. But I’ll gi’e a bit hand, an’ we’ll sune take out what’s left,—the feck [most] o’t’s out, onyway;” and Bell soon put a new face on the parts that needed attention.
Mrs. Barrie wished her to stay over the Sabbath, and to be present at the introduction of Mr. Barrie to his new charge, but Bell did not relish that idea at all. Although the call had helped on her marriage, it had parted her from her best friends; and she said to David, that “altho’ there was naebody she likit sae weel to hear as Mr. Barrie, she wad Wishart-Kirk nane.”
“MAK’ ILKA THING LOOK BRAW.”
After getting things “a wee snod” in the new house, she fulfilled her early promise to David to put everything right by making a good many very sensible purchases for Blackbrae. Not even an Edinburgh shopkeeper could induce Bell to buy, hardly even to look at, anything she did not think needful;—she had matured her inventory of wants, and held to it. She quickly scented that she was wrong if she went into a “cheap John” shop, as she called it; and, when outside, said to David:
“It’s hard for a greedy e’e to hae a leal heart: we’ll hae nae trash in our house—a’s no’ gold that glitters.” The result of her shopping was: “I dinna ken whether McLaren or Lauther’s the best shop, but there’s this much, they hae gude things; an’ if ye’re willing to pay for them, ye’ll get the very best, an’ hit’s aye the cheapest.”
Bell and David had resolved to furnish one or two of the rooms, so that she could invite her old friends to stay with her. “She thocht they wad like to come, an’ she wad be as glad to see them, specially Gordie, but ’deed ony o’ them a’.” Sandie Ramage got all the shoppings gathered together, and after bidding good-bye to Mrs. Barrie’s household, they “drove the day into the night,” and landed safely at Blackbrae.
There they were “as happy as the day was lang,” Bell doing her part as thoroughly as she had ever done it in Mrs. Barrie’s service, but with even more pawkiness [shrewdness] than ever; and she carried on her experiments with her hens,—indeed, with all the live stock,—until, to them, “her very foot had music in’t” as she went amongst them. And David and she had as cosy a fireside as could be found in broad Scotland, until for miles round, the best recommendation that a servant could have was that she had been a year or two at Blackbrae when she was a lassie.
“SCOTCH REVIEWER.”
Many acts of considerate kindness are told by the poor and the needy about the mistress at Blackbrae; for Bell’s heart expanded as her power of doing good increased. She had little romantic poetry in her nature, for her favourite book in that way was the admirable collection of nursery songs that first appeared at the end of a book called “Whistle-binkie,” which is unhappily now very scarce. Bell had the “Songs for the Nursery” bound separately, and many a night did she entertain the Barrie bairns with its admirable Doric: “Willie Winkie,” “Cockie-Leerie-La,” “John Frost,” “The A B C,” “Uncle Jamie,” “Cur-rook-i-ty-doo,” etc.; but she always ended with “The Blind Beggar Man,” and to this day she carries out the noble sentiments embodied in the following lines:—