“Oh! if it’s imagination,” said the Provost’s lady, “I can hear him swearin’. And now, what’s my cup?”
“I see here,” said The Macintosh, “a kind o’ island far at sea, and a ship sailin’ frae’t this way, wi’ flags to the mast-heid, and a man on board.”
“I hope he’s well, then,” said the Provost’s lady, “for that’s our James, and he’s coming from Barbadoes: we had a letter just last week. Indeed you’re a perfect wizard!” She had forgotten that her darling James’s coming was the talk of the town for ten days back.
Colin Cleland, rubicund, good-natured, with his shyness gone, next proffered his palm to read. His hand lay like a plaice, inelegant and large, in hers, whose fresh young beauty might have roused suspicion in observers less carried away in the general illusion.
“Ah! sir,” said she with a sigh, “ye hae had your trials!”
“Mony a ane, ma’am,” said the jovial Colin. “I was ance a lawyer, for my sins.”
“That’s no’ the kind o’ trial I mean,” said The Macintosh. “Here’s a wheen o’ auld tribulations.”
“Perhaps you’re richt, ma’am,” he admitted. “I hae a sorry lot o’ them marked doon in auld diaries, but gude-be-thanked I canna mind them unless I look them up. They werena near sae mony as the rattlin’ ploys I’ve had.”
“Is there no’ a wife for Mr Cleland?” said the Provost—pawky, pawky man!
“There was ance, I see, a girl, and she was the richt girl too,” said The Macintosh.