“I heard a wee bird singing clear,
In the tight, tight month o’ June—
‘What garr’d ye buy when stocks were high,
And sell when shares were doun?
‘Gin ye hae play’d me fause, my luve,
In simmer ’mang the rain;
When siller’s scant and scarce at Yule,
I’ll pay ye back again!
‘O bonny were the Midland Halves,
When credit was sae free!—
But wae betide the Southron loon
That sold they Halves to me!’”
I declare, upon the word of a Railway Director, that I was never more taken aback in my life. Attached as I have been from youth to the Scottish ballad poetry, I never yet had heard a ditty of this peculiar stamp, which struck me as a happy combination of tender fancy with the sterner realities of the Exchange. Provost Binkie smiled as he remarked my amazement.
“It’s only my daughter Maggie, Mr Dunshunner,” he said. “Puir thing! It’s little she has here to amuse her, and sae she whiles writes thae kind o’ sangs hersel’. She’s weel up to the railroads; for ye ken I was an auld Glenmutchkin holder.”
“Indeed! Was that song Miss Binkie’s own composition?” asked I, with considerable interest.
“Atweel it is that, and mair too. Maggie, haud your skirling!—ye’re interrupting me and the gentleman.”
“I beg, on no account, Mr Binkie, that I may be allowed to interfere with your daughter’s amusement. Indeed, it is full time that I were betaking myself to the hotel, unless you will honour me so far as to introduce me to Miss Binkie.”
“Deil a bit o’ you gangs to the hotel to-night!” replied the hospitable Provost. “You bide where you are to denner and bed, and we’ll hae a comfortable crack over matters in the evening. Maggie! come ben, lass, and speak to Mr Dunshunner.”
Miss Binkie, who I am strongly of opinion was all the while conscious of the presence of a stranger, now entered from the adjoining room. She was really a pretty girl—tall, with lively sparkling eyes, and a profusion of dark hair, which she wore in the somewhat exploded shape of ringlets. I was not prepared for such an apparition, and I daresay stammered as I paid my compliments.
Margaret Binkie, however, had no sort of mauvaise honte about her. She had received her final polish in a Glasgow boarding-school, and did decided credit to the seminary in which the operation had been performed. At all events, she was the reverse of shy; for in less than a quarter of an hour we were rattling away as though we had been acquainted from childhood; and, to say the truth, I found myself getting into something like a strong flirtation. Old Binkie grinned a delighted smile, and went out to superintend the decanting of a bottle of port.
I need not, I think, expatiate upon the dinner which followed. The hotch-potch was unexceptionable, the salmon curdy, and the lamb roasted without a fault; and if the red-armed Hebe who attended was somewhat awkward in her motions, she was at least zealous to a degree. The Provost got into high feather, and kept plying me perpetually with wine. When the cloth was removed, he drank with all formality to my success; and as Margaret Binkie, with a laugh, did due honour to the toast, I could not do less than indulge in a little flight of fancy as I proposed the ladies, and, in connection with them, the Flower of Dreepdaily—a sentiment which was acknowledged with a blush.