“The Cornel, as I was saying,” continued Patchey, passing loftily over this compliment, “says many a thing to me that it would ill become me to say over again; but this ye a’ ken as well as me. The gentleman at Marchmain was married upon the Cornel’s sister, and died of a stroke, and the visitation of God, the day afore yesterday; and a’ the great fortune that’s been lying gathering this mony a year has come to his son.”
“Eyeh, Mr. Patchey! but the fortin’—that’s just the thing I cannot make owght of, head nor tail,” cried Mrs. Gilsland; “there was never no signs, as ever I heard tell on, of fortin’ at Marchmain, and for a screw and ould skinflint, that would give nowght but the lowest for whatever she wanted, I’ll engage there’s no the marrow of Peggy from Kenlisle to Cardale; and if you had asked me, I could have vowed with my last breath that the family had seen better days, and were as poor as ever a family pretending to be gentry could be.”
At this statement, which he took to be derogatory to his dignity, Patchey squared his spare shoulders, and erected his head.
“Being near relations of my ain family,” said Patchey, “where persons have oucht to say agin the family at Marchmain, I would rather, of the twa, that it was not said to me.”
“Agin the family!” cried Mrs. Gilsland—“havers! wasn’t Mr. Horry at my house five nights in the week, and the Cornel himsel’ brought Miss here to dine? Do you mean to tell me its agin a family to say it’s seen better days? Eyeh! wae is me! to think there’s no a soul in the Grange but ould Sally, and the young Squire out upon the world to seek his fortin’ like any other man! but where’s the man would dare to say I thought the less o’ Mr. Roger? That’s no my disposition, Mr. Patchey. It may be the way o’ the world, but it isn’t mine.”
“Leftenant Musgrave, if it’s him you’re meaning, he’ll do weel, mum,” said Patchey, with solemnity; “he’s been visiting at our house, and the Cornel’s tooken him up. I would not say but more folk nor the Cornel had a kindness for that lad; but these affairs are awfu’ delicate. I wadna say a word for my life.”
“Eyeh, man! I’ll lay a shilling it’s Miss!” cried Mrs. Gilsland, in great excitement and triumph.
“But all this has little to do with the family at Marchmain,” said Sergeant Kennedy, as Patchey shook his head with mysterious importance—“what’s the rights o’ that story if wan might ask, Patchey, my friend?—for it’s little likely the Cornel would keep a grand family secret like that from a confidential man like you.”
“Ye’re right there, Sergeant; he’ll say more to me, will our Cornel, than to ony other living man, were it Mr. Ned or Mr. Tom, that are but callants,” said Patchey. “I ken mair nor most folk of a’ our ain concerns; but it’s as good as a play to hear this. I’ve made it out, a sma’ bit at a time, mysel’; and if it werena that the gentleman’s dead, ye might hew me down into little bits, before ye would get anything that wasna wanted to be heard, out of me. But he’s gane, poor gentleman, and a’ the better for him, as I’ve little doubt; and Mr. Horry, as ye call him, has come into a great fortune. Ye see the rights of it was this:—the auld man of a’, the grandfather, had been a captious auld sinner, though I say it that should not; and being displeased ae way or anither at his son, this ane that’s now dead, he made a will, strick cutting him off, and leaving the haill inheritance at his death to his son, a baby in his nurse’s arms. That’s just the short and the long of it. I’ve read sichlike in print; but it’s no often ye meet wi’ a devil’s invention like that in living life. And the Cornel’s sister’s husband, ye see, he took it savage, being but a young man then; and the poor lady died, and down came he here, with an ill heart at a’ the world—and the rest ye ken as weel as me.”
“Eyeh, man, is that the tale?” said Mrs. Gilsland. “I wouldn’t say but it was dead hard upon Mr. Horry’s papaw; but, dear life! was the man crazed that he would take it out on his childer?—for more neglected things than them two, begging your pardon, Mr. Patchey, were not in this countryside; and how they’ve comed up to be as they are is just one of the miracles of Providence. Neyther a play nor a lesson like other folks’s childer, nor a soul, to see them frae year’s end to year’s end. It was common talk; that’s the way I know; but, eyeh, Mr. Patchey! had the very Cornel himsel’ no thought for them poor childer there?”