As soon as the carriage had left the door, the Leddy resumed the
conversation with her granddaughter.
‘Noo, Beenie Walkinshaw,’ said she, ‘I maun put you to the straights
o’ a question. Ye’ll no tell me, lassie, that ye hae na flung stoor in
your father’s een, after the converse that we had thegither by oursels
the other day; therefore and accordingly, I requeesht to know, what’s
at the bottom o’ this black art and glamour that ye hae been guilty
o’?--whatna scamp or hempy is’t that the cutty has been gallanting wi’,
that she’s trying to cast the glaiks in a’ our een for?--Wha is’t?--I
insist to know--for ye’ll ne’er gar me believe that there’s no a
because for your jookery pawkrie.’
‘You said,’ replied Miss, half blushing, half laughing, ‘that you would
lend a helping hand to me with Walkinshaw Milrookit.’
‘Eh! Megsty me! I’m sparrow-blasted!’ exclaimed the Leddy, throwing
herself back in the chair, and lifting both her hands and eyes in
wonderment.--‘But thou, Beenie Walkinshaw, is a soople fairy; and so
a’ the time that thy father,--as blin’ as the silly blin’ bodie that
his wife gart believe her gallant’s horse was a milch cow sent frae
her minny,--was wising and wyling to bring about a matrimony, or, as I
should ca’t, a matter-o’-money conjugality wi’ your cousin Jamie, hae
ye been linking by the dyke-sides, out o’ sight, wi’ Walky Milrookit?
Weel, that beats print! Whatna novelle gied you that lesson, lassie?
Hech sirs! auld as I am, but I would like to read it. Howsever, Beenie,
as the ae oe’s as sib to me as the ither, I’ll be as gude as my word;
and when Dirdumwhamle and your aunty, wi’ your joe, are here the day,
we’ll just lay our heads thegither for a purpose o’ marriage, and let
your father play the Scotch measure or shantruse, wi’ the bellows and
the shank o’ the besom, to some warlock wallop o’ his auld papistical
and paternostering ancestors, that hae been--Gude preserve us!--for
aught I ken to the contrary, suppin’ brimstone broth wi’ the deil lang
afore the time o’ Adam and Eve. Methuselah himself, I verily believe,
could be naething less than half a cousin to the nine hundred and
ninety-ninth Walkinshaw o’ Kittlestonheugh. Howsever, Beenie, thou’s
a--thou’s a--I’ll no say what--ye little dooble cutty, to keep me in
the dark, when I could hae gi’en you and Walky sae muckle convenience
for courting. But, for a’ that, I’ll no be devoid o’ grace, but act the
part of a kind and affectionate grandmother, as it is well known I hae
ay been to a’ my bairns’ childer; only I never thought to hae had a
finger in the pye o’ a Clarissy Harlot wedding.’
‘But,’ said Robina, ‘what if my father should succeed in persuading
James still to fall in with his wishes? My situation will be dreadful.’
‘’Deed, an that come to a possibility, I ken na what’s to be done,’
replied the Leddy; ‘for ye know it will behove me to tak my ain son,
your father’s part; and as I was saying, Jamie Walkinshaw being as
dear to me as Walky Milrookit, I can do no less than help you to him,
which need be a matter of no diffeequalty, ’cause ye hae gart your
father trow that ye’re out o’ the body for Jamie; so, as I said before,
ye maun just conform.’
Miss looked aghast for a moment, and exclaimed, clasping her hands,
at finding the total contempt with which her grandmother seemed to
consider her affections,--
‘Heaven protect me! I am ruined and undone!’
‘Na, if that’s the gait o’t, Beenie, I hae nothing to say, but to help
to tak up the loupen-steek in your stocking wi’ as much brevity as is
consistent wi’ perspicuity, as the minister o’ Port Glasgow says.’
‘What do you mean? to what do you allude?’ cried the young lady
terrified.
‘Beenie Walkinshaw, I’ll be calm; I’ll no lose my composity. But it’s
no to seek what I could say, ye Jerusalem concubine, to bring sic a
crying sin into my family. O woman, woman! but ye’re a silly nymph, and
the black stool o’ repentance is oure gude for you!’
Robina was so shocked and thunderstruck at the old lady’s imputations
and kindling animadversions, that she actually gasped with horror.
‘But,’ continued her grandmother,--‘since it canna be helped noo, I
maun just tell your father, as well as I can, and get the minister when
we’re thegither in the afternoon, and declare an irregular marriage,
which is a calamity that never happened on my side of the house.’
Unable any longer to control her agitation, Robina started from her
seat, exclaiming, ‘Hear me, in mercy! spare such horrible--’
‘Spare!’ interrupted the Leddy, with the sharpest tone of her
indignation,--‘An’ ye were my dochter as ye’re but my grand-dochter,
I would spare you, ye Israelitish handmaid, and randy o’ Babylon.
But pride ne’er leaves its master without a fa’--your father’s weel
serv’t--he would tak nane o’ my advice in your education; but instead
o’ sending you to a Christian school, got down frae Manchester,
in England, a governess for miss, my leddy, wi’ gum-flowers on her
head, and paint on her cheeks, and speaking in sic high English, that
the Babel babble o’ Mull and Moydart was a perfection o’ sense when
compar’t wi’t.’
‘Good heavens! how have you fallen into this strange mistake?’ said
Robina, so much recovered, that she could scarcely refrain from
laughing.
‘Beenie, Beenie! ye may ca’t a mistake; but I say it’s a shame and a
sin. O sic a blot to come on the ’scutcheon of my old age; and wha will
tell your poor weakly mother, that, since the hour o’ your luckless
clecking, has ne’er had a day to do weel. Lang, lang has she been
sitting on the brink o’ the grave, and this sore stroke will surely
coup her in.’
‘How was it possible,’ at last exclaimed Robina, in full
self-possession, ‘that you could put such an indelicate construction on
anything that I have said?’
The Leddy had by this time melted into a flood of tears, and was
searching for her handkerchief to wipe her eyes; but, surprised at
the firmness with which she was addressed, she looked up as she leant
forward, with one hand still in her pocket, and the other grasping the
arm of the elbow chair in which she was seated.
‘Yes,’ continued Robina, ‘you have committed a great error; and though
I am mortified to think you could for a moment entertain so unworthy an
opinion of me, I can hardly keep from laughing at the mistake.’
But although the Leddy was undoubtedly highly pleased to learn that she
had distressed herself without reason, still, for the sake of her own
dignity, which she thought somehow compromised by what she had said,
she seemed as if she could have wished there had been a little truth in
the imputation; for she said,--
‘I’m blithe to hear you say sae, Beenie; but it was a very natural
delusion on my part, for ye ken in thir novelle and play-actoring times
nobody can tell what might happen. Howsever, I’m glad it’s no waur;
but ye maun alloo that it was a very suspectionable situation for you
to be discovered colleaguing wi’ Walky Milrookit in sic a clandestine
manner; and, therefore, I see that na better can be made o’t, but to
bring a purpose o’ marriage to pass between you, as I was saying,
without fashing your father about it till it’s by hand; when, after he
has got his ramping and stamping over, he’ll come to himsel, and mak us
a’ jocose.’
The conversation was continued with the same sort of consistency as far
as the old lady was concerned, till Mrs. Milrookit and Dirdumwhamle,
with their son, arrived.
Young Milrookit, as we have already intimated, was, in point of
personal figure, not much inferior to James; and though he certainly
was attached to his cousin, Robina, with unfeigned affection, he had
still so much of the leaven of his father in him, that her prospective
chance of succeeding to the estate of Kittlestonheugh had undoubtedly
some influence in heightening the glow of his passion.
A marriage with her was as early and as ardently the chief object of
his father’s ambition, as the union with his cousin Walkinshaw had
been with her’s; and the hope of seeing it consummated made the old
gentleman, instead of settling him in any town business, resolve to
make him a farmer, that he might one day be qualified to undertake the
management of the Kittlestonheugh estate. It is, therefore, unnecessary
to mention, that, when Robina and her lover had retired, on being
told by their grandmother they might ‘divert themselves in another
room’, Dirdumwhamle engaged, with the most sympathetic alacrity, in
the scheme, as he called it, to make the two affectionate young things
happy. But what passed will be better told in a new chapter.