"Just so, guid auld Burgher lad," rejoined Mrs. M'Pherson.
"They had only been a few months married, when Mr. Fletcher's health having failed him,—and surely his liver is rotten to this day, if not his heart too,—he came home with his wife, and bought this bonnie place. She brought with her a squalling half-and-half thing,—there he's at the door this moment." By-and-by, "My little prince (she cried), go to Aditi—Ady, we call her—that's the black ayah my lady brought home with her."
"That will be another wife, I fancy," said Aminadab. "They have all two or three wives in the East, haven't they? Guid faith, ane's mair than eneugh here, if the Nawab's daughter's in her cradle."
"No, no, no, ye fool."
"'And I shall cut off the multitude of No,' Ezekiel thirtieth, fifteen."
"An ayah is a servant; and Ady's a good black soul as ever foolishly washed her face when there's no occasion for the trouble. And yet these black creatures are for ever washing themselves. They wash before breakfast and after breakfast, before dinner and after dinner, before supper and after supper, but the never a bit whiter they are that ever I could see."
"Yea, they might save themselves a great deal of trouble," said
Aminadab.
"But they won't," rejoined Janet. "We have been tortured with their washings. Sometimes, when angry, I say to Ady, Can't you go down to the Scouring Burn?"
"'And wash thyself in the brook Cherith, which is before Jordan.'"
"But she says it's Brahma that bids her—that's their biggest god; and this Brahma is a trouble to us too. It seems he is everywhere; and Ady seeks him on Balgay Hill and in the churchyard o' nights, when the moon's out; thereafter coming in with those eyes of hers like flaming coals, darting them on us, who don't believe in Brahma, as if we were the real heathens, and not she and her mistress."