“Maybe no’,” said Gilchrist cautiously. “I’m never just so sure of that; but, anyway, he’s a delicate creature, feared for everything, and for a Christian eye upon him, which is the worst of all; and wherefore we should take them upon our shoulders, folk that we have nothing to do with, a husband and wife, and the family that’s coming——”
“Oh, woman,” said her mistress, “if they have got just a step out of the safe way in the beginning, is that not reason the more for helping them back? And how can I ever know what straits he might have been put to, and his mother ignorant, and not able to help him?”
“Eh, but I’m thankful to hear you say that again!” Gilchrist cried.
“Not that I can ever have that fear now, for a finer young man, or a more sweet ingenuous look! But no credit to any of us, Gilchrist. I’m thankful to those kind people that have brought him up; but it will always be a pain in my heart that I have had nothing to do with the training of him, and will never be half so much to him as that—that lady, who is in herself a poor, weakly woman, if I may say such a word.”
“It is just a very strange thing,” said Gilchrist, “that yon lady is as much taken up about our Miss Dora as you are, mem, about the young lad.”
“Ah!” said Miss Bethune, with a nod of her head, “but in a different way. Her mother’s sister—very kind and very natural, but oh, how different! I am to contrive to take Dora to see her, for I fear she is not long for this world, Gilchrist. The young lad, as you call him, will soon have nobody to look to but——”
“Mem!” cried Gilchrist, drawing herself up, and looking her mistress sternly in the face.
Miss Bethune confronted her angrily for a moment, then coloured high, and flung down, as it were, her arms. “No, no!” she cried—“no, you are unjust to me, as you have been many times before. I am not glad of her illness, poor thing. God forbid it! I am not exulting, as you think, that she will be out of my way. Oh, Gilchrist, do you think so little of me—a woman you have known this long, long lifetime—as to believe that?”
“Eh, mem,” said Gilchrist, “when you and me begin to think ill of each other, the world will come to an end. We ken each ither far too well for that. Ye may scold me whiles when I little deserve it, and I put a thing upon you for a minnit that is nae blame of yours; but na, na, there is nae misjudging possible between you and me.”
It will be seen that Gilchrist was very cautious in the confession of faith just extorted. She was no flatterer. She knew of what her mistress was capable better than that mistress herself did, and had all her weaknesses on the tips of her fingers. But she had no intention of discouraging that faulty but well-beloved woman. She went on in indulgent, semi-maternal tones: “You’ve had a great deal to excite you and trouble you, and in my opinion it would do ye a great deal of good, and help ye to get back to your ordinary, if you would just put everything else away, and consider with me what was to be done for thae two feckless young folk. If the man is not put to do anything, he will be in more trouble than ever, or I’m no judge.”