Another Home.
“Weel! weel! If the marriage is wi’ auld Mr Dawson’s free consent, then the Ethiopian can change his skin, and that would be makin’ the Bible out nae true. It’s little ye ken! He’s nae a man to change like that.”
It was Mrs Cairnie who spoke, sitting at her daughter’s door, with her crutch at her side. Young Mrs Saugster was sitting inside with her baby on her lap, and her mother-in-law and Maggie, busy with her seam, were with her.
“But Mr Dawson went to the marriage himself, and he wouldna ha’e gone but o’ his ain free will,” said Maggie as no one else answered.
“There’s nae sayin’. Young George has the tow in his ain hand. It’s as he says now, I doubt, about maist things.”
“But he could hardly have wished the auld man to go against his will. And indeed Mr Dawson gets the credit o’ makin’ the marriage himsel’, though that’s likely going beyond the truth,” said old Mrs Saugster. “But what I wonder at is Mrs Calderwood. She is a quait woman, but she is as stiff in her way, and as proud as ever Mr Dawson was; and though she said little at the time, she carried a sair heart and angry, for many a day after she lost her Elsie.”
“Folk change,” said her daughter-in-law. “Ay. And it’s wonderfu’ what folk can outlive.”
“Mrs Calderwood!” repeated Mrs Cairnie. “What about her! It’s a grand marriage for the like o’ her dochter, no’ to say that she has gotten her triumph ower auld George at last. It’s weel to be her.”
“It is all like a tale in a book. Somebody should make a ballad about it,” said Maggie. “It’s no’ often that we see a thing comin’ to the right end, as this ha’e done.”
“The end hasna come yet,” said Mrs Cairnie. “And it’s no’ that richt for some folk. Look at young Miss Jean. She has her ain thoughts, and they are no’ o’ the pleasantest, or her lace doesna tell the truth. And why didna she go to the marriage wi’ the lave?”