“He has a gude right, Captain,” said Jeanie.
“Teil ane potter to ony ped in the kintra,” answered the Captain. “And ye had potter tell your father, puir body, to get his beasts a’ in order, and put his tamn’d Cameronian nonsense out o’ his head for twa or three days, if he can pe so opliging; for fan I speak to him apout prute pestil, he answers me out o’ the Pible, whilk is not using a shentleman weel, unless it be a person of your cloth, Mr. Putler.”
No one understood better than Jeanie the merit of the soft answer, which turneth away wrath; and she only smiled, and hoped that his Grace would find everything that was under her father’s care to his entire satisfaction.
But the Captain, who had lost the whole postage of the letter at backgammon, was in the pouting mood not unusual to losers, and which, says the proverb, must be allowed to them.
“And, Master Putler, though you know I never meddle with the things of your kirk-sessions, yet I must pe allowed to say that I will not be pleased to allow Ailie MacClure of Deepheugh to be poonished as a witch, in respect she only spaes fortunes, and does not lame, or plind, or pedevil any persons, or coup cadger’s carts, or ony sort of mischief; put only tells people good fortunes, as anent our poats killing so many seals and doug-fishes, whilk is very pleasant to hear.”
“The woman,” said Butler, “is, I believe, no witch, but a cheat: and it is only on that head that she is summoned to the kirk-session, to cause her to desist in future from practising her impostures upon ignorant persons.”
“I do not know,” replied the gracious Duncan, “what her practices or postures are, but I pelieve that if the poys take hould on her to duck her in the Clachan purn, it will be a very sorry practice—and I pelieve, moreover, that if I come in thirdsman among you at the kirk-sessions, you will be all in a tamn’d pad posture indeed.”
Without noticing this threat, Mr. Butler replied, “That he had not attended to the risk of ill-usage which the poor woman might undergo at the hands of the rabble, and that he would give her the necessary admonition in private, instead of bringing her before the assembled session.”
“This,” Duncan said, “was speaking like a reasonable shentleman;” and so the evening passed peaceably off.
Next morning, after the Captain had swallowed his morning draught of Athole brose, and departed in his coach and six, Mrs. Butler anew deliberated upon communicating to her husband her sister’s letter. But she was deterred by the recollection, that, in doing so, she would unveil to him the whole of a dreadful secret, of which, perhaps, his public character might render him an unfit depositary. Butler already had reason to believe that Effie had eloped with that same Robertson who had been a leader in the Porteous mob, and who lay under sentence of death for the robbery at Kirkcaldy. But he did not know his identity with George Staunton, a man of birth and fortune, who had now apparently reassumed his natural rank in society. Jeanie had respected Staunton’s own confession as sacred, and upon reflection she considered the letter of her sisteras equally so, and resolved to mention the contents to no one.