“Poor man, poor man!” cried Mrs Ogilvy. “My heart is wae for him, Janet. He is like the man in the Bible that built Jericho. He has laid his foundations in his first-born, and established his gates on his youngest son. You must tell Andrew that I will want him and Sandy to-morrow to go and inquire. No the bonnie little one that was his comfort!—oh, not her, not her, Janet!”
“Mem, it is aye the Lord that kens best.”
“I am not misdoubting that; but I’ve had many a thought—I would not aye be blaming the Lord. When the seed is put into the ground, we should be prepared for what it will bring forth, and no look for leaves of silver and apples of gold; but why should I speak? for there is little meaning in words, and we are a strange race—oh, just a strange race—following our wild ways.”
Mrs Ogilvy had dropped her stocking by this time into her lap, and she wrung her slender hands as she spoke, with a look that was not like the calm of the place. Whether Janet noted this or merely followed the instinct of her wandering record of events, it was impossible to tell from her steady countenance, which did not change.
“And there’s to be a wedding up the water at Greenha’. You will mind, mem, Thomoseen, that was once in our ain house here as the girrl, and an awfu’ time I had with her, for she would learn nothing. She’s grown the biggest woman on a’ Eskside, and they call her Muckle Tammy, and mony an adventure she’s had since she left my kitchen—having broken, ye will maybe mind, mem, every dish we had. And for her ain sake, thinking it would maybe be a lesson to her, I wanted you to take it off her wages——”
“Yes, yes, I mind. The things would not stay in her hands; they were too big. We have had our experiences with our girrls, Janet,” Mrs Ogilvy said, with a smile. She had taken up her knitting again, and recovered her tranquil looks.
“That we have, mem! if I was to make out a chronicle—but some of them have turned out no so ill after a’. Weel, Muckle Tammy, she has gotten a man.”
“He will likely be some small bit creature,” the mistress said.
“They say no—a clever chield, and grand wi’ a garden, and meaning to grow vegetables for the market at Edinburgh; for she is a lass with a tocher, her mother’s kailyard and her bit cottage, and nothing for him to do but draw in a chair and sit down.”
“I doubt there’ll be but little comfort inside,” said Mrs Ogilvy. “If it had been her to look after the kail and the cabbages, and him to keep everything clean and trig; but there’s no telling. A change like that works many ferlies. You must just see, Janet, if there is anything she is wanting for her plenishing—some linen, or a few silver teaspoons, or a set of china, or a new gown.”