Follow this burn;—it is the same important stream which forms the boundary between Anstruther Easter and Wester; and when it has led you a circuit through some half-dozen fields, you come upon a little cluster of buildings gathered on its side. Already, before you reach them, that rustling sound tells you of the mill; and now you have only to cross the wooden bridge, (it is but two planks, though the water foams under it,) and you have reached the miller’s door.
That little humble cot-house, standing respectfully apart, with the miller’s idle cart immediately in front of it, is the dwelling-place of Robert Moulter, the miller’s man; but the miller’s own habitation is more ambitious. In the strip of garden before the door there are some rose-bushes, some “apple-ringie,” and long plumes of gardener’s garters; and there is a pointed window in the roof, bearing witness that this is a two-storied house of superior accommodation: the thatch itself is fresh and new—very different from that mossy dilapidated one of the cottar’s house; and above the porch flourishes a superb “fouat.” The door, as usual, is hospitably open, and you see that within all are prepared for going abroad; for there is a penny wedding in the town, which already has roused all Anster.
Who is this, standing by the window, cloaked and hooded, young, but a matron, and with that beautiful happy light upon her face? Under her hood, young as she is, appears the white edge of lace, which proves her to have assumed already, over the soft brown shining hair which crosses her forehead, the close cap of the wife; but nothing remains of the old shy sad look, to tell you that this is Isabell Stewart. Nor is it. Mrs Stewart there, in her crimson plaid and velvet hood, who is at present delivering a lecture on household economics, to which her daughter listens with a happy smile, would be the first to set you right if you spoke that old name. Not Isabell Stewart—Leddy Kilbrachmont!—a landed woman, head of a plentiful household, and the crown and honour of the thrifty mother, whose training has fitted her for such a lofty destiny, whose counsels help her to fill it so well.
Janet, equipped like the rest, goes about the apartment, busily setting everything “out of the road.” The room is very much like the family room in Kellie Mill: domestic architecture of this homely class is not capable of much variety; and hastily Janet thrusts the same pretty wheel into a corner, and her mother locks the glistening doors of the oak aumrie. Without stands Philip Landale, speaking of his crops to the miller; and a good-looking young sailor, fiancée of the coquettish Janet, lingers at the door, waiting for her.
But there is another person in the background, draping the black lace which adorns her new cloak gracefully over her arm, throwing back her shoulders with a slightly ostentatious, disdainful movement, and holding up her head like Lady Anne. Ah, Katie! simple among the great people, but very anxious to look like a grand lady among the small! Very willing are you in your heart to have the unsophisticated fun of this penny wedding to which you are bound, but with a dignified reluctance are you preparing to go; and though Isabell smiles, and Janet pretends to laugh, Janet’s betrothed is awed, and thinks there is something very magnificent about Lady Anne Erskine’s friend. They make quite a procession as they cross the burn, and wind along the pathway towards the town;—Janet and her companion hurrying on first; young Kilbrachmont following, very proud of the wife who holds his arm, and looking with smiling admiration on the little pretty sister at his other hand; while the miller and his wife bring up the rear.
“Weel, I wouldna be a boaster,” said Mrs Stewart; “it would ill set us, wi’ sae muckle reason as we have to be thankful. But just look at that bairn. It’s my fear she’ll be getting a man o’ anither rank than ours, the little cuttie! I wouldna say but she looks down on Kilbrachmont his ain very sel.”
“She’s no blate to do onything o’ the kind,” said the miller.
“And how’s the like o’ you to ken?” retorted his wife. “It’s my ain blame, nae doubt, for speaking to ye. Ye’re a’ very weel with your happer and your meal, John Stewart; but what should you ken about young womenfolk?”
“Weel, weel, sae be it, Isabell,” said John. “It’s a mercy ye think ye understand yoursels, for to simple folk ye’re faddomless, like the auld enemy. I pretend to nae discernment amang ye.”
“There winna be ane like her in the haill Town House,” said Mrs Stewart to herself; “no Isabell even, let alane Janet; and the bit pridefu’ look—the little cuttie!—as if she was ony better than her neighbours.”