“My dear lamb! ye wadna have had me to ca’ the muckle langleggit haverel of a beast after you, and you a winsome young lady? Na, I ken better manners—and forbye Mossgray said it was nae compliment. But I’ll tell ye what, Miss Hope, there’s a new powny—the bonniest creature!—and ye’se get the naming o’t, gin ye like.”
“Where is it?—wait till I see it, mamma!” cried Hope, starting up. Hope had, like most country girls, an especial liking for youthful animals.
“Ye maun hae your cream first,” said the housekeeper, as Effie approached with the china luggie, in which, from time immemorial, Hope had received a draught of rich cream on her every visit to Mossgray. Hope hardly took time to taste it; she was too eager to see the “new powny.”
“Did you see the laird, Mem?” said Mrs Mense, with some appearance of anxiety, as Mrs Oswald waited for her daughter’s return.
“We saw him on the knowe,” said Mrs Oswald; “but did not disturb him, as he seemed occupied. I fancy that is one of his favourite spots, Mrs Mense.”
“Na—I’m meaning I dinna ken,” said the old woman; “but he’s gotten some letter the day that’s troubled him—I canna bide to see him fashed, and he’s just unco easy putten about. Janet, div ye hear the clock? it’s twa chappit, and the dinner no to the fire!”
“I ken what I’m doing, auntie,” returned the impatient Janet.
“Ye dinna ken onything very wise then,” said the dethroned monarch of the kitchen; “it’s a bonnie-like thing that the laird, honest man, maun wait for his dinner, aboon a’ the rest o’ his troubles! I heard him travelling up and down in his ain study-room in the tower, after thae weary letters came in. What gars folk write when they’ve naething but ill-tidings to tell about, I wad like to ken? and syne out to the Waterside as he aye does when he’s troubled—I canna bide, as I was saying, to see him fashed, for—”
“Oh, Mrs Mense!” exclaimed Hope, bounding in, “be sure and tell Mossgray that he is not to call the pony anything till I come back again. Mamma, come and see it; it’s like as if its coat was all sprinkled with snow—I think I will call it Spunkie; but that’s not a bonnie name. Mind, Mrs Mense, that nobody is to give it its name but me.”
Mrs Mense promised, and after some further lamentation about her master’s supposed trouble, resumed so keenly the dinner controversy with Janet, that her visitors withdrew. It was yet too early to visit Helen Buchanan, so Hope, expatiating on the beauty of the pony, returned with her mother, home.