Meanwhile the other tenants of the omnibus had alighted and entered the house. "A man with a sickly wife and a couple of daughters," was the verdict upon the party, which was only rectified by reference to the house-register after they had catalogued themselves--"Joseph Naylor, Mrs Caleb Naylor, and the Misses Naylor, all of Jones's Landing, Upper Canada."
"Oh, girls, I am exhausted! Open the windows and the trunks. Hartshorn and sal-volatile! I shall faint--I am sure I shall faint. Margaret, get ready to go down with your uncle. Lucy, my child, you must remain with me."
"Stuff and nonsense, Maria!" said the uncle. They were being shown their rooms up-stairs. "You have only to exert yourself. That's all you require to set you up. And of course you must come down to dinner. The sight of so many strangers will do you good, and we shall want your help to make up our minds about the company."
Mrs Naylor shook her head in plaintive toleration. It was not to be expected that coarse-fibred masculinity should comprehend the susceptibility of her delicate nerves. She half-closed her eyes and sank into a chair, with every appearance of taking up her quarters for good--unless, indeed, she should have to be laid upon the adjoining bed.
Joseph, standing impatiently without, grew uneasy, as perhaps was intended. He was of an anxious temper, fussy as well as kind. The responsibility of having a delicate lady on his hands oppressed him. He had groaned under the load for years, but he had not got used to it. It oppressed him ever the more, the longer he endured it, and he was overridden by the whims and complaints of this relict of his deceased brother, even more than if she had been wife of his own.
"Pray try, sister--try. It is for your health we are here, you know. It will be distressing if you begin by taking to your bed. I feel confident that a morsel of dinner and a glass of sparkling wine will do you good."
I will not say that it was the suggestion of the wine which induced Mrs Naylor to change her purpose; it may only have been willingness to yield to entreaty. At any rate, she let herself be persuaded, though not too easily, and eventually went downstairs with the rest.
At dinner they shared a table with their fellow-travellers of the omnibus, and found Mr Wilkie and his mother already placed when they entered.
"Mother," Peter had been saying, "you will have to behave here, or you will compromise me before all those Toronto people. If they carry back a tale of queer doings on our part, you will find it harder than ever to get into society when we go home. There is Mrs Judge Petty with her son and daughter, and there Colonel and Mrs Carraway, and the Vice-Chancellor Chickenpips! Mind what you are about. This is not the Gallowgate of Glasgow--remember that! If they see you biting your bread or eating with your knife, you're done for; and so am I."
"Peter Wilkie, I wonder ye can have the heart to be speaking like that to your dying mother!--bringing on the palpitations worse than ever. Oh, my heart! it's just thumping. If I did take lodgers at one time--ay, and turn the mangle with my own hands--whose sake was it done for? Tell me that. I wonder where the money would have come from to pay for your fine edication if I had chosen to sit and drink my tea in the afternoons like a feckless leddy, as I might have done! It wasn't your bankrupt father, danderin' about the doors hand-idle, that could have helped you. I just slaved with that mangle and the lodgers to bring up my boay; and now, when he is in a splendid way of doing, this is the thanks he gives me--to cast the Gallowgate up to me! As if it wasna you, and your father before you, that brought me down to that! Think shame of yourself, Peter Wilkie!" And the big round tears came rattling in a very hailstorm out of the old blue eyes, leaving watercourses among her ribbons, and mingling with the gravy in her plate, till the son felt like a brute--or at least he should have felt so; and he certainly feared that he must appear like one in the eyes of any fellow-guest who might observe him.