“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 amissing. 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 ae stick, or I sair misjudge them. But I’m veesitin’ a cousin owerby 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 Cleghorn, what comes o’ Kaims? Will he be owner o’t?”
“Certainly not, ma’am,” said Mr Dyce, with a gravity well preserved considering his inward feelings. “Even before the Married Women’s Property Act, his jus mariti, as we ca’ it, gave him only his wife’s personal and moveable estate. There is no such thing as communio bonorum—as community of goods—between husband and wife in Scotland.”
“And he canna sell Kaims on me?”
“No; it’s yours and your assigns ad perpetuam remanentiam, being feudal right.”
“I wish ye wad speak in honest English, like mysel’, Mr Dyce,” said the lady sharply. “I’ve forgotten a’ my Laiten, and the very sound o’t gars my heid bizz. I doubt it’s the lawyer’s way o’ gettin’ round puir helpless bodies.”