“What is the name of that house on the waterside, Miss Crankie?” asked Anne.
“That’s Schole, Miss Ross,” said Miss Crankie, with the air of a person who introduces a notability. “You will have heard of it before, no doubt? It came into the possession of the present Laird, when he was in his cradle, puir bairn, and his light-headed gowk of a mother has him away, bringing him up in England.—She’s English hersel: maybe ye might ca’ that an excuse. I say its a downright imposition and shame to tak callants away to a strange country to get their breeding, when a’body kens there’s no the like o’ us for learning in a’ the world and Fife?”
“And does the proprietor of the house live in it now?” said Anne.
“Bless me, no—the Laird’s but a callant yet. Tammie, woman, what year was’t that auld Schole died?”
“It was afore I was married,” said Mrs. Yammer, dolefully.—”I was a lang tangle of a lassie then, Miss Ross; and I mind o’ rinning out without my bonnet, and wi’ bare shoulders, and standing by the roadside, to see the funeral gang by. I have never been free o’ rheumatism since that day—whiles in my head—whiles in my arm—whiles—”
“Miss Ross will hear a’ round o’ them afore she gangs away, Tammie,” said Miss Crankie, impatiently, “or else it’ll be a wonderful year. It’s maybe fifteen or sixteen years ago; and the widow and the bairn were off to England in the first month. Ye may tak my word for’t, there wasna muckle grief, though there was crape frae head to fit of her. I mind the funeral as weel as if it had passed this morning—folk pretending they were honoring the dead, that would scarce have spoken a word to him when he was a living man. He was an old, penurious nasty body, that bought a young wife wi’ his filthy siller. Ye mind him, Tammie?”
“Mind him!” said the martyr Tammie, pathetically, “ay, I have guid reason to mind him. Was I no confined to my bed, haill six weeks after that weary funeral wi’ the ticdouleureux? the tae cheek swelled, and the tither cheek blistered. I ken naebody, Johann, that has guid reason to mind him as me.”
“Weel, weel,” said Miss Crankie, “it was a strong plaister of guid mustard that cured ye. It’s a comfort that ane needs nae advice to prepare that—its baith easy made and effectual.”
Mrs. Yammer was cowed into silence. Miss Crankie, with a triumphant chuckle, went on: “And since then there’s been no word of them, Miss Ross, except an intimation in the newspapers, that the light-headed fuil of a woman had married again. Pity the poor bairn that has gotten a stepfather over him, for bye being keeped out of the knowledge o’ his ain land. I was ance in England mysel. There’s no an article in’t but flat fields, and dead water, and dreary lines o’ hedges. Ye may gang frae the tae end to the tither (a’ but the north part, and its maistly our ain,) and never ken ye have made a mile’s progress—its a’ the same thing ower again—and sleek cattle, beasts and men, that ken about naething in this world but eating and drinking. To think of a callant being keeped there, out of the knowledge of his ain country, and it a country like this!”
“It is a great pity, certainly,” said Anne, smiling.