“His auld things!—that wouldna peep upon him, the man he is now. He was shapin’ for a fine figger of a man when he went away: but no braid and buirdly as he is now.”
Janet spoke in a tone of genuine admiration and triumph, which was balm to her mistress’s heart. His bigness, his looseness of frame, had indeed been one of the little things that had vexed her among so many others. “Not like my Robbie,” she had breathed to herself, thinking of the slim and graceful boy. But it gave her great heart to see how different Janet’s opinion was. It was she who was always over-anxious. No doubt most folk would be of Janet’s mind.
“I was thinking,” said Janet, “to take him a shirt of my man’s, just his best. It has not been on Andrew’s back for many a day. ’Deed, I just gave it a wash, and plenty of stairch, as the gentlemen like, and ironed it out this morning. The better day the better deed.”
“On the Sabbath morning!” said Mrs Ogilvy, half laughing, half crying.
“I’ll take the wyte o’t,” said Janet. “But I can do nae mair. I canna offer him a suit of Andrew’s: in the first place, his best suit, he has it on: and I wouldna demean Mr Robert to a common man’s working claes; and then besides——”
“If you’ll get those he’s wearing, Janet, and brush them well, that’ll do fine. And then we must have no visitors to-day. I know not who would come from the town on the Sabbath-day, except maybe Miss Susie. Miss Susie is not like anybody else; but oh, I would not like her to see him so ill put on! Yet you can never tell, with that ill habit the Edinburgh folk have of coming out to Eskholm on the Sunday afternoon, and then thinking they may just daunder in to the Hewan and get a cup of tea. The time when you want them least is just the time they are like to come.”
“We’ll just steek the doors and let them chap till they’re wearied,” said Janet, promptly. “They’ll think ye’ve gane away like other folk, for change of air.”
“I’m loth to do that—when folk have come so far, and tired with their walk. Do you think, Janet, you could have the tea ready, and just say I have—stepped out to see a neighbour, or that I’m away at the manse, or——? I would be out in the garden out of sight, so it would be no lee to say I was out of the house.”
“If it’s the lee you’re thinking of, mem—I’m no caring that,” and Janet snapped her fingers, “for the lee.”
Neither mistress nor maid called it a lie, which was a much more serious business. The Scottish tongue is full of those nuances, which in other languages we find so admirable.