“No,” said Mr Dyce, “I know it well enough, but—but I don’t believe it,” and he smiled at his own paradox.
“I have her own words for it.”
“Then she’ll go!” said the lawyer firmly, as if a load was off his mind; and, oddly, there were no objections from his sisters. “You’re not to imagine, Mr Molyneux,” he went on, “that we have not thought of this before. It has for months been never out of our minds, as might be seen from the fact that we never mentioned it, being loth to take a step that’s going to make considerable difference here. It’s not that we feared we should die of ennui in her absence, for we’re all philosophers and have plenty to engage our minds as well as our activities, and though you might think us rather rusty here we get a good deal of fun with ourselves. She’ll go—oh, yes, of course she’ll go,—Ailie went, and she’s no’ muckle the waur o’t, as we say. I spent some time in the south myself, and the only harm it seems to have done me was to make me think too much perhaps of my native north. Taste’s everything, Mr Molyneux, and you may retort if you please that I’m like the other Scotsman who preferred his apples small and hard and sour. I think there’s no divine instruction, is there, Bell, about apples? and judgments regarding different countries and different places in them is mostly a subjective thing, like the estimate of beauty apart from its utility—”
“Oh! there you are at your metapheesics, Dan,” cried Miss Bell, “and it’s for me and Ailie to make ready the bairn for Edinburgh. She hasna got a stitch that’s fit to be put on.”
Molyneux stared at her—the tone displayed so little opposition to the project; and seeing him so much surprised, the three of them smiled.
“That’s us!” said Mr Dyce. “We’re dour and difficult to decide on anything involving change, and hide from ourselves as long as we can the need for it; but once our mind’s made up, it’s wonderful how we hurry!”
CHAPTER XXV.
Bell liked the creature, as I say; not a little because she saw in him whence came some part of Bud’s jocosity, and most of the daft-like language (though kind of clever too, she must allow) in which it was expressed. It was a different kind of jocosity from Dan’s, whose fun, she used to say, partook of the nature of rowan jelly, being tart and sweet in such a cunning combination that it tickled every palate and held some natural virtue of the mountain tree. The fun of Molyneux had another flavour—it put her in mind of allspice, being foreign, having heat as well as savour. But in each of these droll men was the main thing, as she would aye consider it—no distrust of the Creator’s judgment, good intentions and ability, and a readiness to be laughed at as well as find laughter’s cause in others. She liked the man, but still-and-on was almost glad when the telegram came from Edinburgh and he went back to join his company. It was not any lack of hospitality made her feel relief, but the thought that now Bud’s going was determined on, there was so much to do in a house where men would only be a bother.
Mr Molyneux found himself so much at home among them, he was loth to go, expressing his contempt for a mode of transit to the railway that took two hours to nineteen miles; but Bell, defensive even of her country’s coaches, told him he was haivering,—that any greater speed than that was simply tempting Providence. He praised the Lord there was no Providence to be tempted inside Sandy Hook, and that he knew Beef Kings who hurled themselves across the landscape at the rate of a mile a minute. The fact inspired no admiration in Miss Bell: she wondered at the misguided wretches scudding like that regardless of their lives, and them with so much money.
Before he left he called at the Pigeons’ Seminary to say good-bye to the little teachers, and sipped tea,—a British institution which he told them was as deleterious as the High Ball of his native land. High Ball—what was a High Ball? asked Miss Amelia, scenting a nice new phrase; but he could only vaguely indicate that it was something made of rye and soda. Then she understood—it was a teetotal drink men took in clubs, a kind of barley-water. The tea gratified him less than the confidence of the twins, who told him they had taken what he said about the—about the shameful article so much to heart, that they had given it for a razor-strop to one George Jordon.