“I’m just very comfortable. Never you mind me, Neil, my man. Just go to your bed, and if anything should happen Jeanie will give ye a cry. Your father was never a man that could do without his night’s rest. And there’s no need; I’m just as easy as I can be, and well taken care of.” Mrs. Douglas was past the little wiles which women fall into when there is a domestic despot to deal with. She forgot that it was a sin against her husband that Kirsteen should be there. She turned her head from one side to the other with a smile. “Real weel taken care of—between them,” she said.
Drumcarro lifted his head and gazed fiercely at the figure on the other side; the folds of his eyelids widened and opened up, a fierce glance of recognition shot out of them. “How dared ye come here?” he said.
“To see my mother,” said Kirsteen.
“How dared ye come into my house?”
“I would have gone—to the gates of death when my mother wanted me. Let me be, as long as she wants me, father; she’s so quiet and peaceable, you would not disturb her. Let her be.”
He looked at her again, with a threatening look, as if he might have seized her, but made no other movement. “Ye’ve done less harm than you meant,” he said; “ye’ve brought no canailye into my house; ye’ll just pass and drop with no importance, and have no mention in the family. Be it so. It’s no worth my while to interfere; a lass here or a lass there maitters nothing, so long as there’s no canailye brought into my house.”
“Neil,” said the mother from the bed, “we must just pray the Lord to bless them a’ before we pairt. Fourteen of them between you and me—I’ve just been naming them a’ before the Lord. Alison, she was the first; you were terrible disappointed thinking there might maybe be no more.” Mrs. Douglas once more laughed feebly at this mistake. “And then there was Alexander, and ye were a proud man. And then Donald and William, and then Anne, my bonny Anne, my first lass that lived—”
“Hold your peace, woman. Put out that name, damn her! confound her! She’s none o’ mine.”
“And Neil that ye called Nigel, but I like it Neil best,” said the low voice rippling on without interruption. “And syne Mary, and syne—— But eh, it wearies me to name them a’. Their Maker just knows them a’ well, puir things, some in heaven, and some in India—— and some——. Just say with me, God bless them a’, fourteen bonnie bairns that are men and women now—and some of them with bairns of their ain. To think all these lads and lassies should come from me, always a waik creature—and no a blemish among them all—not a thrawn limb, or a twisted finger, straight and strong and fair to see. Neil, my man, take my hand that’s a poor thin thing now, and say God bless them all!”
“What good will that do them? I’m for none of your forms and ceremonies,” said Drumcarro, putting his hands deep in his pockets, “ye had better try and get some sleep.”