“I wonder what they can see in’t—a muckle dirty place, with long lums pouring out smoke. I wouldna gie Arrochar for twenty o’t.”
“I suppose,” said Kirsteen, “it’s because there is aye plenty doing there.”
“I suppose sae. And ye’re going to take up a situation? It’s no a place I would choose for a young lass, but nae doubt your mother kens what she’s doing. Is it a lady’s maid place, or to be with bairns, or—I’m sure I beg your pardon! You’ll be a governess, I might have seen.”
Kirsteen had grown very red at the thought of being taken for a lady’s maid, but she said to herself quickly that her pride was misplaced, and that it was the best service any one could do her to think her so. “Oh, no,” she said, “I’m not clever enough to be a governess. I’m going—to a mantua-maker’s.”
“Weel, weel—that’s a very genteel trade, and many a puir leddy thankful to get into it,” said Mrs. Macfarlane. “I’m doubting you’re one yoursel’, or else ye have lived with better kind of folk, for ye’ve real genty ways, and a bonny manner. Take heed to yourself in Glasco, and take up with none of thae young sprigs in offices that think themselves gentlemen. Will ye no take another cup? Weel, and I wouldna wonder ye would be better in your bed than any other place. And how are ye going on in the morning? There’s a coach from Eelensburgh, but it’s a long walk to get there. If ye like Duncan will get out the gig and drive you. It would be a matter of twelve or maybe fifteen shillings if he couldna get a job back—which is maist unlikely at this time of the year.”
With many thanks for the offer Kirsteen tremblingly explained that she could not afford it. “For I will want all my money when I get to Glasgow,” she said.
“Weel,” said Mrs. Macfarlane, “ye ken your ain affairs best. But there’s sturdy beggars on the road, and maybe ye’ll wish ye had ta’en my offer before you win there.”
Kirsteen thought she never would sleep for the aching of her limbs when she first laid herself down in the hard bed which was all the little Highland inn, or even the best houses in Scotland, afforded in that period. Her mind was silenced by this strange physical inconvenience, so that she was quiescent in spirit and conscious of little except her pangs of fatigue. Youth, however, was stronger than all her pangs, and the influence of the fresh mountain air, though charged with damp, in which she had pursued her journey—and she slept with the perfect abandon and absolute repose of her twenty years, never waking from the time she laid her head upon the pillow until she was awakened by Eelen, the Highland maid, whom she opened her eyes to find standing over her with the same admiring looks as on the previous evening.
“Your hair will be like the red gold and your skin like the white milk,” said Eelen; “and its chappit acht, and it’s time to be wakening.”
Kirsteen did not spring from her bed with her usual alertness, for she was stiff with her first day’s travels. But she rose as quickly as was possible, and got down stairs to share the porridge of a weakly member of the family who was indulged in late hours, and had a little cream to tempt her to consume the robust food.