"And I must swallow that too, as it seems to come up my throat and choke me, even as the pork seems to do you. Take time, Aminadab. There's no hurry, man. Ah well, then, we have it all among the servants how Mr. Fletcher got my lady. He was a great man in Bombay—governor, I think, or something near that—and my lady was the only daughter of the Nawab or Nabob of some kingdom near Bombay—I forget the strange Indian name. She was the very petted child of her father; and when Mr. Fletcher saw her, she was running about the palace like a wild, playful creature—I may say, our bonny little roes of the Highland hills, or maybe another creature she used to speak about, I think they call it gazelle, with such wonderful eyes for shining, that you cannot look into them no more you could at the sun. For, oh, Aminadab! they have strange things in these places, which are much nearer the sun than we are here in this old country. But the mighty Nabob was unwilling to give her to the white-faced lover, even though he was the governor of Bombay, forbye having Balinsloe and Lindertes in Scotland too. Maybe he thought a Scotsman could not like a black Indian princess, though she was with her grand shawls about her, and her jewelled turban, and diamonds and pearls, and all that; and maybe, Aminadab, he thought"—and here Janet lowered her husky voice—"that it was just for these fine things he wanted her, rich though he was himself. Yet, strange enough too, the Nabob had promised the man who should marry his daughter the weight of herself in fine Indian gold, weighed in a balance, as her tocher. Heard ye ever the like of a tocher, man?"
"That would depend upon her size and weight, Janet, lass. Now, had you a tocher like that, it would be a gey business, I think,—fourteen potato-stones at the very least, I would say, eh?"—and he must get quit of the mouthful before he could finish—"Eh, Janet?"
"And if you go on at that rate with my pork, you will not, by-and-by, be much behind me. But, guid faith, Aminadab, I'm not ashamed, lad, of my size. A poor, smoke-dried, shrivelled cook shames her guid savoury dishes, intended to fatten mankind and make them jolly. But you are right about the offer of the Nabob. The creature was small, and light, and lithe, and could not weigh much. But then, think of the jewels! These did not depend upon her weight, but upon their own light. Oh, what diamonds, and rubies, and pearls as big as marbles! I have looked at them till my eyes reeled with the light of them; and no wonder, when I have heard them valued at a hundred thousand guineas—and to think of all that being held in a little box! There is one necklace worth fifteen thousand itself."
"And yet a small neck, too, maybe?—'And thou shalt make a necklace to fit her neck,' said the Lord. It would not be half the girth of yours, Mrs. M'Pherson?"
"Ay, Aminadab; not a half, nor anything like it. But don't stop me again, lad, or I'll stop the pork. (A pause.) Ah, well, I fear it was the shining jewels, and not the black face, did the business on my master's side. And, of course, he would be all smiles at the Nabob's court; for, Aminadab, my lad, there never was on the face of God's earth a man who could so soon change the horrid dark scowl into the very light of sunshine as Mr. Fletcher. I have seen him, when in company with Kincaldrum, and Dudhope, and Gleneagles, and the rest, laughing till his face was as red as the sun, then, all of a sudden, when some of his moods came over him, turn just like a fiend new come out of—oh, I'll just say it out, Aminadab, though ye be of the Seceders—just hell, lad."
"But, good mother Janet—"
"Mother your own mother, man, till you be a father, Aminadab. Have I not told you to let me go on? There's no honour in a mother: that sow you are eating was the mother six times of thirteen at each litter; and I think that's about seventy-eight. Mother, forsooth! Ay, and yet you'll see a beggar wretch, clad in tanterwallops—rags is owre guid a word—coming to Logie door, and looking as if she had the right to demand meal from me, merely because she has two at her feet and one in her arms. Such honourable gaberlunzies get no meal from me. My master was keen for the match; but the Nabob was shy of the white face. And here's a curious thing—I got it from my lady herself. She said the Nabob, her papa, as she called him—for, just like us here, they have kindly words and real human feelings—made a bargain with my master, that if he took her away out of India to where the big woman they call the Company lives, he would be kind to her, and 'treat her as he would do a child which is rocked in a cradle.'"
"Better than Naomi's wish," said Aminadab; "'And the Lord grant ye find rest in the house of thy husband.'"
"That bargain they made him sign with blood drawn just right over his heart; and the Nabob signed, too, for the weight of gold and the jewels. Then came the marriage. Such a day had not been witnessed in Bombay for years, if ever, when a great son of the big woman was to be married to the daughter of a Nawab. All the great men of Bombay, and the rich Parsees, she called them, were at the king's court, and the little princes round about for hundreds of miles, and all the ministers of Indian state,—for you must know that the marriage was in the English fashion, as the Nawab thought he could bind the bridegroom best in that way. Then the grand feast, and such dancing, and deray, and firing of cannons, and waving of flags, was never seen!"
"'And all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again.'"