“‘Peggy Mucklewham, will ye no look to the door, for your deein’ faither’s sake?’
“‘Tuts!’ quo’ Peggy, ‘Can ye not get up yersel—fashin’ folk?’
“Weel, I then got entrance—the sneck being cannily lifted, an’ the bairns makin’ a breenge into a hidin’ corner, until, by the light o’ the fire, they kent my face.
“‘Ou, it’s auld Saunders, as sure as death. Ay, man, my faither’s real ill—he’s just gaspin’, and that’s a’! Hear till that—that’s him whistlin’! Hae ye no brought Towzie wi’ ye? Man, Pate and me wad hae’n sic grand fun chasin’ the mawkins, when my mither’s at the kirk the morn.’
“‘Are ye sorry to lose your faither, bairnies?’ quo’ I.
“‘Ou, ay,’ quo’ Pate, ‘but I dinna like to look at him, he maks sic awfu’ faces, man; but I hae been thrang greetin’, sin’ four o’clock even on—twice as muckle’s Jock!’
“A lang deep groan now was heard from out o’ the spence, whaur the laird was lying; and the bairnies, in a fricht, ran screeching to anither apartment, leaving the youngest wean by the fireside, rowed in ane o’ the auld man’s black coats.
“‘Gude save us, lammie!’ quo’ I, ‘is there naebody tending your puir auld faither? Whaur’s uncle, lammie? and aunty? and your minnie, lammie?’ I mind weel the bit bairnie’s answer—‘Unkey a’ doon—aunty a’ doon—daddy a’ doon!’
“Mrs Mucklewham was a stout buirdly quean, like a house-end; and the laird was just a bit han’fu’ o’ a cratur—a bit saxteen-to-the-dizzen body. They were a pair o’ whom it was said, by the kintra-side, that they had married afore they had courted. The laird was an auld man when he brought hame a woman thirty years younger than himsel;—auld folk are twice bairns, and he was beginning to need nursing. It’s wonderfu’ to think how little a matter hinders gentlebred folk frae getting on in the warld! A’ that Jenny Screameger wantit o’ the complete leddy was the bit dirty penny siller; an’ sae they were joined thegither, without its ever being mentioned in the contract, or understood, that they bound and obliged themselves to hae a heartliking for ane anither!
“She had been keepit by the gudeman geyan short by the tether; sae as her hale life was made just a dull round till her—o’ rising and lying down—eating, drinking, and sleeping—feeding the pigs, milking the cow—flyting the servant—and skelping the weans a’ round;—unless when she dreamed o’ burials, or saw a spale at the candle—or heard o’ a murder committed in the neighbourhood—or a marriage made or broken aff—or a criminal to suffer on the gallows; till at her advanced time o’ life it was grown just as neccessar’ that food should be gotten for her mind’s maintenance, as it was for her body’s.