“The woman’s daft!” said the laird. “Glasgow! what will they do there? a white gown! a fiddlestick—what do they want that they haven’t got—plenty of good meat, and a good roof over their heads, and nothing to do for’t but sew their seams and knit their stockings and keep a pleasant tongue in their heads. If ye stir up nonsense among them, I’ll just turn ye bag and baggage out of my house.”
“I would advise ye to do that, sir,” said Marg’ret calmly. “I’ll no need a second telling. And ye’ll be sorry but ance for what ye have done, and that’ll be a’ your life.”
“Ye saucy jade!” said the laird: but though he glared at her with fiery eyes, he added no more on this subject. “The lassies!” he said, “a pingling set aye wanting something! To spend your money on feeding them and clothing them, that’s not enough it would appear! Ye must think of their finery, their parties and their pleasures. Tell Kirsteen she must get a man to do that for her. She’ll have no nonsense from me.”
“And where is she to get a man? And when she has gotten a man—the only kind that will come her gait—”
Mr. Douglas rose up from his chair, and shook his clenched first. Rage made him dumb. He stammered out an oath or two, incapable of giving vent to the torrent of wrath that came to his lips. But Marg’ret did not wait till his utterances became clear.
CHAPTER VII.
This was one of the days when Mrs. Douglas thought she felt a little better, and certainly knew it was very dull in her bed-room, where it was not possible to keep even Kirsteen stationary all day, so she had ventured to come down stairs after the heavy midday dinner which filled the house with odours. A little broth, served with what was considered great delicacy in Drumcarro in a china dish on a white napkin, had sufficed for her small appetite; and when everything was still in the house, in partial somnolence after the meal, she had been brought to the parlour with all her shawls and cushions, and established by the fire. The news of the great ball at the Castle which had moved Marg’ret to the desperate step she had just taken had its effect in the parlour too. Kirsteen who had said at first proudly, “What am I heeding?” had, notwithstanding everything, begun to wake up a little to the more usual sensations of a girl of twenty when any great event of this description is about to take place. It would be bonny to see—it would be fine just for once to be in grand company like the old Douglases her forbears, and to see how the lords and ladies behaved themselves, if they were really so different from common folk. And then Kirsteen began to think of the music and the sound of the dancers’ feet upon the floor, in spite of herself—and the imaginary strains went to her head. She was caught in the measure of her dreams, swaying a little involuntarily to keep time, and interjecting a real step, a dozen nimble twinklings of her feet in their strong country shoes as she went across the room to fetch a new clew for her mother’s knitting.
“What’s that you’re doing, Kirsteen, to shake the whole place?” said Mrs. Douglas.