“Oh, man, haud your tongue, haud your tongue,” cried Bell. “Sir Ludovic! that has aye been so steady and so weel in health. I canna credit what you say. Your best claes! Put on your bonnet, mair like, and gang and bid the doctor come this way, canny, the morn’s morning, without saying a word to anybody. That’s the thing for you to do. And now I’ll send that laud away,” she added, briskly. This was a little outlet to her feelings; and to do Bell justice, she was glad to have a moment alone after hearing this alarming news.
CHAPTER XV.
The doctor came, very careful to explain that he had come to call out of friendship only, because it was so long since he had seen Sir Ludovic. But he could perceive nothing to justify John’s alarm. Sir Ludovic was glad to see the neighbor who was more intelligent than most of his neighbors, and with whom he could have a little talk. The doctor was a plain man of homely Scotch manners and speech; but he knew all about the county and everybody in it, and was not unacquainted with books. Sir Ludovic, who was glad to be delivered from himself, and who found it easier to escape from the prospect which oppressed him, by means of society than in any other way, detained the doctor as long as he could, and listened with much more patience than usual to the gossip of the parish, and smiled at the jokes which Dr. Hume carried about from patient to patient to “give the poor bodies a laugh,” he said.
“Come back again soon,” the old man said, accompanying his visitor to the door. The doctor was pleased, for he had seen Sir Ludovic much less complaisant. He stepped into the vaulted kitchen before he left the house, to tell Bell what he thought.
“I see no difference in him,” said Dr. Hume; “he’s an old man. We are none of us so young as we once were, Bell; and an old man cannot live forever. He’s bound to get an attack of bronchitis or something else before long, and to slip through our fingers. But I see nothing to be alarmed at to-day. There’s a little bit of a vacant look in his eyes; but, Lord bless us! many of us have that all our lives, and never die a day the sooner. He tells me the ladies are expected—”
“Na, but that’s news, doctor!” said Bell; “the ladies! it’s no their time for three months yet, the Lord be thanked, and I’ve never heard a word.”
“Well,” said the doctor, “now you’re warned, and you can take your measures accordingly. He certainly said they were coming. They’re no the wisest women on the face of the earth; but still, if you are anxious, it would be a comfort, do you not think so, to have some of the family in the house?”
“Ye dinna ken our ladies, doctor—ye dinna ken our ladies,” said Bell.
“Atweel, I ken a heap of ladies,” said the doctor, with a laugh. He liked a joke at women when it was to be heard. “One’s very like another; but if it was only for his little Peggy, as he calls her, I should think he would be glad to have his daughters here.”
“He’s no a bit glad, no more nor the rest of us—nor Miss Margaret either,” said Bell; and it was with a clouded countenance that she saw the doctor mount his horse at the door of the court. And when John came in to ask what Dr. Hume thought, she gave him an answer which was full of sorrowful impatience. “He said nothing it was any pleasure to hear,” said Bell, and it was only later that she unbosomed herself of her vexation. “He says there’s nothing wrong; and syne he goes away telling me that the ladies are coming, and that it will be a comfort to have some of the family in the house. That means that a’s wrong, so far as I’m equal to judging. Sir Ludovic in his bed wi’ a long illness and the ladies here!”