On a fine summer’s morning, about a month after Ethelston’s departure for the Far–west, the merchant’s four–wheeled chaise stood before his door, drawn, not by a sorry pony, but by a strong horse, the condition and appearance of which betokened the thriving circumstances of the owner. Jessie Muir, wearing a very becoming bonnet, and a shawl newly arrived from England, had just cast a passing look into the oval mirror in the back–parlour, and was busily employed in giving directions respecting the contents of a parcel about to be placed in the seat of the chaise, while Henry Gregson was listening with ill–dissembled impatience to the repeated cautions given to him by David as to his conduct during the brief absence which he meditated.
“Noo, Hairy,” (for thus was the name of Harry pronounced in David’s north–country dialect,) “ye maun be vera carefu’ o’ the store, and see that the lads attend weel to the folk wha come to buy, and that Jane stays aye amang the caps an’ shawls and printed cottons, instead of keekin out o’ the window at a wheen idle ne’er–do–weels in the street; and as for the last lot of Bohea, ye can truly say it’s the finest that ever cam’ to Marietta: I’m thinkin’ the minister’s wife will be fain to buy a pun’ or twa. And, Hairy, mind that ye ... but the deil’s in the lad! what are ye glow’ring at, over my shoulder, as if ye se’ed a wraith, an’ no listening to what I’m sayin’?”
Here the merchant turned round, and his eye happening to fall upon a parcel of fire–irons so carelessly placed on an upper shelf, that they threatened the destruction of a pile of crockery below, he ordered the shop–boy to secure the offending tongs, and, turning to Harry, continued in a more complacent tone, “It’s nae wonder, lad, that ye could na tak’ your een off they irons; they had like to make an awfu’ smash amaing the cups and saucers; I’m glad to see that ye ‘re so canny and carefu’ o’ the goods.”
Harry bit his lips, and made no reply, while the merchant, who had already seen Jessie take her seat in the chaise, was preparing to follow, when he turned to the young man, and said in a low voice, “Ye ‘ll not forget that the mistress will need her gruel at midday?”
“I will take care that it is not forgotten, and I suppose, sir, the glass of French brandy is to be put into it?”
“Glass o’ French brandy, ya daft chiel,” said the merchant, forgetting for a moment the prudential whisper; then resuming it, he added, “Wha talks o’ glasses o’ French brandy? Ye ken tho’ that the mistress has no gotten her strength yet, and she said she would like just four spoonfu’s o’ brandy in the gruel to gie’t a taste and keep the cauld out o’ her wame. Ye ken the mistress’ ain spoon in the tea–cup–board?”
“Yes, sir, I know it well,” replied Harry, with demure gravity, adding, half–aloud, as his principal drove from the door, “and a precious gravy–spoon it is; before it is four times filled and emptied it will make the largest wine–glass in the store run over the brim, and the old lady’s tongue go like a mill–wheel. Never mind, for Jessie’s sake, I’ll brew the gruel as stiff as my father’s grog, and bear Dame Christie’s scolds without complaint.”
“He’s a canny, douce lad, yon Hairy,” said the merchant to his daughter, as they jolted leisurely along the uneven, but picturesque road that led from Marietta to Mooshanne, “and does na’ care to rin about the toon like ither idle gillies, but seems aye content to min’ the store; did ye see, Jessie, how he caught wi’ ae blink o’ his ee the airns that were about to fa’ amongst my best Wedgewood?”
Had the merchant not been occupied as he put this question, in guiding the wheels between sundry deep ruts and holes in the road, he could not have failed to observe the heightened colour that it brought into Jessie’s countenance; for the maiden was conscious that at the moment referred to, Harry’s gaze had been fixed, not upon the fire–irons or the Wedgewood, but upon her own comely self.