“Nothing but auld napery, and the auld sticks of furniture. It will bring very little—and the cow,” said Robert Campbell. “Jean likes the beast, so we were thinking of making an offer for the cow.”
“You’ll no think I’m wanting to get anything by my mother’s death,” said Mrs. MacColl; “for I’m real well off, the Lord be thanked! with a good man, and the bairns doing well; I would rather give than take, if there was any occasion; but Robert has aye had a great notion of the old clock on the stairs. There’s a song about it that one of the lassies sings. I would like that, to keep the bairns in mind o’ their granny. She’s been a kind granny to them all.”
She put her handkerchief to her eyes, and Margaret and Jeanie MacColl cried a little. The rest of the company shook their heads, and assented in different tones.
“Real good and kind, good and kind to everybody! Ower guid to some that little deserved it!” was the general burden, for family could not but have its subdued fling at family, even in this moment of melancholy accord.
“You are forgetting,” said Edgar, “the only one of the family who is not provided for. What my grandmother leaves should be for little Jeanie. She is the only helpless one of all.”
At this there was a little murmur round the table, of general objection.
“Jeanie has had far more than her share already,” said one.
“She’s no more to granny than all the rest of the bairns,” cried another.
Robert Campbell, the only other man present, raised his voice, and made himself heard.
“Jeanie will never want,” he said; “here’s her brother come back, no very much of a man, but still with heart enough in him to keep her from wanting. Willie’s but a roving lad, but the very rovingness of him is good for this, that he’ll not marry; and Jeanie will have a support, till she gets a man, which is aye on the cards for such a bonnie lass.”