"It's no that we hae onything fit to gie ye, but ye maun just tak' the wull for the deed," said the good mother, as she bustled about, and set before her guests a plain and plentiful meal, where all was good enough, and the fresh bread and newly churned butter something more.
"It's Maggie's baith baker and dairy-woman," said the well-pleased dame, in answer to a compliment upon these viands. "And it's she'll be gay and proud to gie ye all her ways about it, gif ye'll ask her."
So Maggie, being questioned, described the process of making "salt-rising" bread, and to the recipe added a friendly caution, that, if allowed to ferment too long, the dough would become "as sad and dour as a stane, and though you br'ak your heart over it, wad ne'er be itsel' again."
From a regard either to etiquette or convenience, only the heads of the family, and Jamie, the eldest son, a fine young giant, of one-and-twenty, sat down with the guests: the girls and younger children waiting upon table, and sitting down afterward with another visitor, an intelligent negro farmer, one of the most pleasing persons Miselle encountered on her travels.
Dinner over, it was proposed that Maggie and Belle should accompany Mr. and Mrs. Williams and Miselle on a visit to some coal-mines about a mile farther back in the forest, and, with the addition of a young man named John, who chanced in on a Sunday-evening call to one of the young ladies, the party set forth.
The day was the sweetest of the Indian summer, and the walk through woods of chestnut and hemlock was as charming as possible, and none the less so for the rustic coquetries of pretty Belle Miller, whose golden hair was the precise shade of a lock once shown to Miselle as a veritable relic of Prince Charlie.
The forest road ended abruptly in a wide glade, where stood the shanty occupied by the miners, a shed for the donkeys employed in dragging out the coal, and, finally, the ruinous tunnel leading horizontally into a disused mine. The wooden tram-way on which the coal-car had formerly run still remained; and cautiously walking upon this causeway through the quagmire of mud, Miselle and Mr. Williams penetrated some distance into the mine, but saw nothing more wonderful than mould and other fungi, bats and toads. Retracing their steps, they followed the tram-way to its termination at the top of a high bank, down which the coals were shot into a cart stationed below. This coal is of an inferior quality, bituminous, and largely mixed with slate. It sells readily, however, upon the Creek, at a dollar a bushel, for use in the steam-engines.
The sight-seers having satisfied their curiosity with regard to the mine, and having paid a short visit to the donkeys, were quietly resuming their walk, when out from the abode of the miners poured a tumultuous crowd of men, women, and children, who surrounded the little party in a menacing manner, while their leader, a stalwart fellow, called Brennan, seized John by the arm, and, shaking a sledge-hammer fist in his face, inquired what he meant by coming to "spy round an honest man's house, and make game of his betters?"
It was in vain that John attempted to disabuse the mind of his assailant of this view of his visit to the old mine; and indeed his argument could not even have been heard, as Brennan was now violently reiterating,—
"Tak' yer coorse, thin! Why don't ye tak' yer coorse?"