“Don’t talk to me, Mr Sudberry. I know better; and Lady Knownothing, who went to Scotland last year, in the most unprejudiced state of mind, came back absolutely horrified by what she had seen. Why, she actually tells me that the natives still wear the kilt! The very day she passed through Edinburgh she met five hundred men without trousers! To be sure, they had guns on their shoulders, and someone told her they were soldiers; but the sight was so appalling that she could not get rid of the impression; she shut her eyes, and ordered the coachman to drive straight through the town, and let her know when she was quite beyond its walls. She has no doubt whatever that most, if not all, of the other inhabitants of that place were clothed—perhaps I should say unclothed—in the same way. What surprised poor Lady Knownothing most was, that she did not see nearly so many kilts in the Highlands as she saw on that occasion in Edinburgh, from which she concluded that the natives of Scotland are less barbarous in the north than they are in the south. But she did see a few. One man who played those hideous things called the pipes—which, she says, are so very like little pigs being killed—actually came into her presence one day, sat down before her with bare knees, and took a pinch of snuff with a salt-spoon!”
“That is a dreadful account, no doubt,” said Mr Sudberry, “but you must remember that Lady Knownothing is given to exaggerating, and is therefore not to be depended on. Have you done with the cons?”
“Not nearly done, John, but my nervous system cannot stand the sustained contemplation of such things. I should like to recover breath, and hear what you have to say in favour of this temporary expatriation, I had almost said, of your family.”
“Well, then, here goes for the pros,” cried Mr Sudberry, while a gleam of excitement shot from his eyes, and his clinched hand came heavily down on the table.
“The sixteenth cup—as near as possible,” observed his wife, languidly.
“Never mind the cups, my dear, but listen to me. The air of the Highlands is salubrious and bracing—”
“And piercingly cold, my dear John,” interrupted Mrs Sudberry.
“In summer,” pursued her husband, regardless of the interruption, “it is sometimes as clear and warm as it is in Italy—”
“And often foggy, my dear.”
“The mountain scenery is grand and majestic beyond description—”