She broke into a torrent of explanation. “Ye must excuse me, Mr. Dyce, if I'm put about and gey confused, for it's little I'm acquent wi' lawyers. A' my days I've heard o' naething but their quirks, for they maistly rookit my grandfaither. And I cam' wi' the coach frae Maryfield, and my heart's in a palpitation wi' sic brienging and bangin' ower heughs and hills—” She placed a mittened hand on a much-laced stomacher and sighed profoundly.
“Perhaps—perhaps a glass of wine—” began the lawyer, with his eye on the bell-pull and a notion in his head that wine and a little seed-cake someway went with crinolines and the age of the Paisley shawl.
“No, no!” she cried, extravagantly. “I never lip it; I'm—I'm in the Band o' Hope.”
The lawyer started, and scanned her again through his glasses with a genial, chuckling crow. “So's most maiden ladies, ma'am,” said he. “I'm glad to congratulate you on your hopes being realized.”
“It remains to be seen,” said the visitor. “Gude kens what may be the upshot. The maist deleeberate mairrage maun be aye a lottery, as my auntie Grizel o' the Whinhill used to say; and I canna plead that mine's deleeberate, for the man just took a violent fancy the very first nicht he set his een on me, fell whummlin' at my feet, and wasna to be put aff wi' 'No' or 'Maybe.' We're a puir, weak sex, Mr. Dyce, and men's sae domineerin'!”
She ogled him through her clouded glasses; her arch smile showed a blemish of two front teeth a-missing. He gave a nod of sympathy, and she was off again. “And to let ye ken the outs and ins o't, Mr. Dyce, there's a bit o' land near Perth that's a' that's left o' a braw estate my forebears squandered in the Darien. What I want to ken is, if I winna could hinder him that's my fiancé frae dicin' or drinkin' 't awa' ance he got me mairried to him? I wad be sair vexed at ony such calamity, for my family hae aye been barons.”
“Ance a baron aye a baron,” said the lawyer, dropping into her own broad Scots.
“Yes, Mr. Dyce, that's a' very fine; but baron or baroness, if there's sic a thing, 's no great figure wantin' a bit o' grun to gang wi' the title; and John Cleghorn—that's my intended's name—has been a gey throughither chiel in his time by a' reports, and I doubt wi' men it's the aulder the waur.”
“I hope in this case it 'll be the aulder the wiser, Miss—” said the lawyer, and hung unheeded on the note of interrogation.
“I'll run nae risks if I can help it,” said the lady, emphatically; “and I'll no' put my trust in the Edinburgh lawyers, either; they're a' tarred wi' the a'e stick, or I sair misjudge them. But I'm veesitin' a cousin ower by at Maryfield, and I'm tell't there's no' a man that's mair dependable in a' the shire than yoursel', so I just cam' ower ains errand for a consultation. Oh, that unco' coach! the warld's gane wud, Mr. Dyce, wi' hurry and stramash, and Scotland's never been the same since—But there! I'm awa' frae my story; if it's the Lord's will that I'm to marry Johnny Cleghom, what comes o' Kaims? Will he be owner o't?”