Ten minutes later Erchie joined his wife and Willie in the room. The dunnage-bag was being emptied before Jinnet by a son who was anxious to make the most of his gifts from foreign parts, though painfully conscious of their value.
“Oh, whit braw shells!” cried his mother. “Jist the very thing I was needin’ for the mantelpiece. The Carmichaels say wally dugs is no’ the go noo at a’. It was rale thochtfu’ o’ ye to tak’ them a’ the wye frae abroad for me.”
“And here a song folio and a pund o’ sweet tobacco for you, faither,” said Willie.
Erchie took them in his hand. “Man, that’s the very thing,” said he. “If ‘Dark Lochnagar’s’ in’t, I’ll be upside wi’ Duffy.”
“Whit’s this?” asked Jinnet, as the sailor brought forth for her a bottle containing some dark thick fluid.
“Riga balsam,—whit the sailors use for sair hands,” said Willie.
“Oh, it’s the very thing Erchie used to say ye wad bring back when ye cam,” cried Jinnet in delight. “It’ll be awfu’ useful. I’m almost vext I havena onything sair aboot me the day.”
“No’ even a sair hert,” said Erchie, and the son looked contritely at his mother.