The Reverend Mr. Kilfuddy was a little, short, erect, sharp-looking,
brisk-tempered personage, with a red nose, a white powdered wig, and
a large cocked hat. His lady was an ample, demure, and solemn matron,
who, in all her gestures, showed the most perfect consciousness of
enjoying the supreme dignity of a minister’s wife in a country parish.
According to the Scottish etiquette of that period, she was dressed
for the occasion in mourning; but the day being bleak and cold, she
had assumed her winter mantle of green satin, lined with grey rabbit
skin, and her hands ceremoniously protruded through the loop-holes,
formed for that purpose, reposed in full consequentiality within
the embraces of each other, in a large black satin muff of her own
making, adorned with a bunch of flowers in needlework, which she had
embroidered some thirty years before, as the last and most perfect
specimen of all her accomplishments. But, although they were not so
like the blooming progeny of Flora, as a Linwood might, perhaps,
have worked, they possessed a very competent degree of resemblance
to the flowers they were intended to represent, insomuch that there
was really no great risk of mistaking the roses for lilies. And here
we cannot refrain from ingeniously suspecting that the limner who
designed those celebrated emblematic pictures of the months which
adorned the drawing-room of the Craiglands, and on which the far-famed
Miss Mysie Cunningham set so great a value, must have had the image
of Mrs. Kilfuddy in his mind’s eye, when he delineated the matronly
representative of November.
The minister, after inquiring with a proper degree of sympathetic
pathos into the state of the mourner’s health, piously observed, ‘That
nothing is so uncertain as the things of time. This dispensation,’ said
he, ‘which has been vouchsafed, Mrs. Walkinshaw, to you and yours, is
an earnest of what we have all to look for in this world. But we should
not be overly cast down by the like o’t, but lippen to eternity; for
the sorrows of perishable human nature are erls given to us of joys
hereafter. I trust, therefore, and hope, that you will soon recover
this sore shock, and in the cares of your young family, find a pleasant
pastime for the loss of your worthy father, who, I am blithe to hear,
has died in better circumstances than could be expected, considering
the trouble he has had wi’ his lawing; leaving, as they say, the estate
clear of debt, and a heavy soom of lying siller.’
‘My father, Mr. Kilfuddy,’ replied the lady, ‘was, as you well know,
a most worthy character, and I’ll no say has na left a nest egg--the
Lord be thankit, and we maun compose oursels to thole wi’ what He has
been pleased, in his gracious ordinances, to send upon us for the
advantage of our poor sinful souls. But the burial has cost the gudeman
a power o’ money; for my father being the head o’ a family, we hae been
obligated to put a’ the servants, baith here, at the Grippy, and at the
Plealands, in full deep mourning; and to hing the front o’ the laft in
the kirk, as ye’ll see next Sabbath, wi’ very handsome black cloth, the
whilk cost twentypence the ell, first cost out o’ the gudeman’s ain
shop; but, considering wha my father was, we could do no less in a’
decency.’
‘And I see,’ interfered the minister’s wife, ‘that ye hae gotten a
bombazeen o’ the first quality; nae doubt ye had it likewise frae Mr.
Walkinshaw’s own shop, which is a great thing, Mrs. Walkinshaw, for you
to get.’
‘Na, Mem,’ replied the mourner, ‘ye dinna know what a misfortune I hae
met wi’. I was, as ye ken, at the Plealands when my father took his
departal to a better world, and sent for my mournings frae Glasgow,
and frae the gudeman, as ye would naturally expek, and I had Mally
Trimmings in the house ready to mak them when the box would come. But
it happened to be a day o’ deluge, so that my whole commodity, on
Baldy Slowgaun’s cart, was drookit through and through, and baith the
crape and bombazeen were rendered as soople as pudding-skins. It was,
indeed, a sight past expression, and obligated me to send an express
to Kilmarnock for the things I hae on, the outlay of whilk was a clean
total loss, besides being at the dear rate. But, Mr. Kilfuddy, every
thing in this howling wilderness is ordered for the best; and, if the
gudeman has been needcessited to pay for twa sets o’ mournings, yet,
when he gets what he’ll get frae my father’s gear, he ought to be very
well content that it’s nae waur.’
‘What ye say, Mrs. Walkinshaw,’ replied the minister, ‘is very
judicious; for it was spoken at the funeral, that your father,
Plealands, could nae hae left muckle less than three thousand pounds of
lying money.’
‘No, Mr. Kilfuddy, it’s no just so muckle; but I’ll no say it’s ony
waur than twa thousand.’
‘A braw soom, a braw soom,’ said the spiritual comforter:--but what
further of the customary spirituality of this occasion might have
ensued is matter of speculative opinion; for, at this juncture, Watty,
the heir to the deceased, came rumbling into the room, crying,
‘Mither, mither, Meg Draiks winna gie me a bit of auld daddy’s burial
bread, though ye brought o’er three farls wi’ the sweeties on’t, and
twa whangs as big as peats o’ the fine sugar seed-cake.’
The composity of the minister and his wife were greatly tried, as
Mrs. Kilfuddy herself often afterwards said, by this ‘outstrapolous
intrusion;’ but quiet was soon restored by Mrs. Walkinshaw ordering
in the bread and wine, of which Walter was allowed to partake. The
visitors then looked significantly at each other; and Mrs. Kilfuddy,
replacing her hands in her satin muff, which, during the refectionary
treat from the funeral relics, had been laid on her knees, rose and
said,--
‘Noo, I hope, Mrs. Walkinshaw, when ye come to see the leddy, your
mither, at the Plealands, that ye’ll no neglek to gie us a ca’ at the
Manse, and ye’ll be sure to bring the young Laird wi’ you, for he’s a
fine spirity bairn--every body maun alloo that.’
‘He’s as he came frae the hand o’ his Maker,’ replied Mrs. Walkinshaw,
looking piously towards the minister; ‘and it’s a great consolation to
me to think he’s so weel provided for by my father.’
‘Then it’s true,’ said Mr. Kilfuddy, ‘that he gets a’ the Plealands
property?’
‘’Deed is’t, sir, and a braw patrimony I trow it will be by the time he
arrives at the years o’ discretion.’
‘That’s a lang look,’ rejoined the minister a little slyly, for
Walter’s defect of capacity was more obvious than his mother imagined;
but she did not perceive the point of Mr. Kilfuddy’s sarcasm, her
attention at the moment being drawn to the entrance of her husband,
evidently troubled in thought, and still holding the papers in his hand
as he took them away from Mr. Omit’s desk.