As soon as she recognized Mr Douglas, she welcomed him with much cordiality, shook him long and heartily by the hand,—patted him on the back,—looked into his face with much seeming satisfaction; and, in short, gave all the demonstrations of gladness usual with gentlewomen of a certain age. Her pleasure, however, appeared to be rather an impromptu than a habitual feeling; for as the surprise wore off, her visage resumed its harsh and sarcastic expression, and she seemed eager to efface any agreeable impression her reception might have excited.
“An’ wha thought o’ seein’ you e’noo?” said she, in a quick gabbling voice; “what’s brought you to the toun? Are ye come to spend your honest faither’s siller, ere he’s weel cauld in his grave, puir man?”
Mr Douglas explained, that it was upon account of his niece’s health.
“Health!” repeated she, with a sardonic smile, “it wad mak a howlet laugh to hear the wark that’s made about young fowk’s health noo-a-days. I wonder what ye’re a’ made o’,” grasping Mary’s arm in her great bony hand; “a wheen puir feckless windle-straes—ye maun awa to England for yer healths. Set ye up! I wonder what came o’ the lasses i’ my time, that but to bide hame? And whilk o’ ye, I sud like to ken, will e’er live to see ninety-sax, like me?—Health! he! he!”
“You have not asked after any of your Glenfern friends,” said Mr Douglas, hoping to touch a more sympathetic chord.
“Time eneugh—will ye let me draw my breath, man?—fowk canna say a’ thing at ance. An’ ye but to hae an English wife, too?—A Scotch lass wadna ser’ ye. An’ yer wean, I’se warran’, it’s ane o’ the warld’s wonders—it’s been unco lang o’ comin’—he! he!”
“He has begun life under very melancholy auspices, poor fellow!” said Mr Douglas, in allusion to his father’s death.
“An’ wha’s faut was that?—I ne’er heard tell the like o’t, to hae the bairn kirsened an’ its grandfather deein’! But fowk are neither born, nor kirsened, nor do they wad or dee as they used to do—a’thing’s changed.”
“You must indeed have witnessed many changes,” observed Mr Douglas, rather at a loss how to utter anything of a conciliatory nature.
“Changes!—weel a wat, I sometimes wonder if it’s the same warld, an’ if it’s my ain head that’s upon my shouthers.”