"Ay, Aminadab, he was forced to go by the Government; but maybe the Government was only like a thing that is moved by the storm, and cuts in twain, where its own silly power could do nothing. Before he went, he married a beautiful little woman,[*] perhaps the most spirited in the shire, white as Kalee was black, and come, too, of gentle blood. Why did she marry this man? Had she not heard of the fate of Kalee? Had she not seen the Cradle (still standing in the hollow of the hill)? No doubt; but woman will go through worse storms than man's passion to get to the goal of wealth and honour. Then there is a frenzy in woman, Aminadab. She is like the boys, who seek danger for its own sake, and will skim on skates the rim of the black pool that descends from the film of ice down to the bubbling well of death below. Women have an ambition to tame wild men; ay, even wild men have a charm for them, which the tame sons of prudence and industry cannot inspire. So it was: they were married, and he took her to India."
[note *: Afterwards, as I have heard, the wife of Milne of Milneford. She lived till nearly a hundred.]
"'So the Lord did lead him; and there was no strange god with them.'"
"Ay, but there was a God before him, lad."
"What mean you, Janet?"
"Do you not recollect of Brahma?"
"Do not mention that strange figure, Janet. My blood runs cold."
Janet laughed.
"Runs cold, lad, at what? Brahma was just one of the Nawab's great men, whom he sent over here to watch the fate of his daughter. Why, man, he lodged next door to you, with Mrs. Lyon at the Scouring Burn."
"The black man the boys used to run after?"