The little cousins, Geordie, Johnny, and Jessie, entered instantly into a clattering of friendly recognizances; and the two mothers bustled forward to chairs alongside of their sister, the lady of the house, whose colour had come and gone twenty times, and all power of speech had been taken away from her by a discovery as sudden as it was unpleasant. Yet what was to be done? Was the aristocratic Grizelda to sit and see tea filled out for the wives and weans of a dresser of yarns, and an artificer of garments? Was the honour of the Geddeses of Cauldshouthers to be scuttled by a needle and a hackle-tooth? But matters were not destined to remain even upon the poise of these pivots. The little nephew of Hallmyres, annoyed by the burgher-bairns, struck one of them a blow in the face, which the spruce scion of the Lithgow tailor returned with far more gallantry than might have been expected from one of his degenerate caste. The cousin Johnny took the part of his relative; and matters were fast progressing towards hostilities, when the lady of Hallmyres rose to quell the incipient affair.
"Aff hands, my woman," cried Peggy, suddenly leaving her chair.
"Ay, ay," added Betty, "we hae at least a right to civility in the house o' our sister. We come kindly and friendly, as may be seen frae what's in my bundle—a gude bacon ham, and a gude cassimir waistcoat, sewed by Saunders' ain hands, for the guidman o' Cauldshouthers, and a' we want is something like friendliness in return. Just let the bairns alane. They'll gree fine when better acquaint."
"Mrs. Geddes," said Grizelda, with a puckered face and a starched manner, "ye'll better tak yer friends ben the house."
"Awa wi' them!" added the laird. "We maun hae a reckoning about a' this."
"There's no the sma'est occasion for't," responded Betty. "The bairns will agree fine. Just let them play themselves while we're taking our tea. Saunders will be here immediately."
"A guid advice," added Peggy; "but wha are our friends, Janet? Canna ye speak, woman? This will be Mr. Geddes, my brither-in-law, I fancy; and this will be Girzie, my gude-sister; but as for the ithers, I ken nae mair about them than I do o' the brothers and sisters o' the sergeant, wham I never saw."
"And here comes Saunders, at last," cried Betty, rising, and running to the window. "I will gang and let him in."
Bustling to the door, she executed her purpose, and straightway appeared again, ushering in, with a face that told her pride in her husband, a Crispinite, wonderfully bien fait, dressed in a suit of glossy black, clean shaven, and as pale as any sprig of nobility.
"Mr. Geddes, I presume," said he, rubbing his hands, which retained the marks of the needle, if not the dye of the mournings.