AUNTIE BELL.
The slanting rays of the afternoon sun were throwing the old
farmhouse, with its goodly barns and well-built stacks, into mellow
lights and warm brown shadows, when Mr Hogg's pony drew up at the
garden-gate. Before they had time to get down, Auntie Bell came out
to greet them,--such a queer little woman, bent half double, and
peering up at her visitors through her gold spectacles with keen
expressive eyes. There was force of character in every line of her
face and figure, even in the dowdy cap, the grey wincey gown, and
snow-white apron.
"Why, it's Rachel Simpson," she said. "Come awa' ben. Dick'll tak'
the powny."
"This is my cousin, Miss Maclean," said Rachel.
"Mona Maclean," corrected the owner of the name.
Auntie Bell gripped her hand and studied her face with as little
regard to her feelings as if she had been a horse or a cow, the
furrow on her own brow deepening the while.
"Eh, but she's like her faither," she said. "The mooth an' the
chin----"
"Yes," said Rachel shortly. The subject of Mona's father was not a
congenial one.
"What w'y are ye no' mairrit yet?" continued Auntie Bell severely,
still maintaining her grasp of Mona's hand.
"'Advanced women don't marry, sir, she said,'" were the first words
that passed through Mona's mind, but she paraphrased them. "We don't
marry now," she said. "It's gone out of fashion."
The muscles of Auntie Bell's face relaxed.
"Hoot awa'," she said. "Wait ye till a braw young man comes
alang----"
"You will dance at my wedding then, won't you?"
"That will I!" and Auntie Bell executed a momentary _pas seul_ on the
spot.
She stopped abruptly and drew down her brows with all her former
gravity.
"I hope ye're cliver," she said.
"Thank you. As folks go nowadays, I think I am pretty fair."
"Ye had need be, wi' a faither like yon."
"Ah," said Mona with sudden gravity, "I was not thinking of him. I
am not clever as he was."
"Na, na, I was thinkin' that. He was"--this with great emphasis--"as
fine a mon as iver I saw."
"But did you know him? I did not know that he was ever in this part
of the country."
"Ay was he! He cam' ae day, it may be five-an'-twinty year
syne--afore there was ony word o' you, maybe. He was keen to see the
hoose whaur his faither was born, and we'd a crack aboot the auld
folks, him and me. Rachel Simpson was at Dundee than. My word! ye'd
hae thocht I'd been the finest leddy at the Towers. But come awa'
ben, an' I'll mask the tea."
"Ye'll find the place in an awfu' disorder," she went on to Rachel as
they entered the spotless parlour. "I'm that hadden doon o' the
hairvest, I've no' got my back strauchten'd up sin' it commenced;"
and she bustled in and out of the kitchen getting the tea.
"You don't let the girls do enough," said Rachel.
"The lassies! Hoot awa'. I canna bide their slatternly w'ys i' the
hoose. I'm best pleased when they're oot-bye."
"You havena been to see me for many a long day."
"Me! I've no' been onywhere; I've no' seen onybody. I've no' been
to the kirk sin' I canna tell ye whan. What w'y would I? The folk
wad a' be lauchin' at daft auld Auntie Bell wi' her bent back. The
meenister was here seein' me. He cam' that day o' the awfu' rain,
his umberella wrang side oot, an' his face blue wi' the cauld--ye ken
what a thin, feckless body he is. 'Come awa', ye puir cratur,' says
I, 'come awa' ben tae the fire.' An' he draws himsel' up, an' says
he, 'Why say, poor creature?'--like that, ye ken--'why say, poor
creature?'" And Auntie Bell clapped her hand on her knee, and
laughed at the recollection.
At this moment Mr Hogg and Auntie Bell's husband--a person of no
great account--passed the window on their way into the house.
"Come awa' tae yer tea, Mr Hogg. Hoot, Dauvid, awa' an' pit on
anither coat. Ye're no' fit tae speak tae the leddies."
David meekly withdrew.
"We were in seeing the Browns," said Rachel complacently. "They were
wanting us to stay to tea."
"Ay! I've no' seen them this mony a day."
"How is he getting on, do you know, in the way of business?" asked Mr
Hogg.
Auntie Bell brought the palm of her hand emphatically down on the
table.
"A' thing i' that shop is guid," she said. "I'm perfectly convinced
o' that; but ye can get things a deal cheaper i' the toon nor ye can
wi' Maister Brown, an' folks think o' naething but that. I aye deal
wi' him mysel'. He haena just a gift for the shop-keepin', but he's
been mair wise-like lately, less taen up wi' his butterflies an'
things."
Before her visitors had finished tea, Auntie Bell was hard at work,
in spite of a mild remonstrance from Rachel, packing a fat duck and
some new-laid eggs for them to take home with them. Something of the
kind was the invariable termination of Rachel's visits, but she would
not have thought it "manners" to accept the basket without a good
deal of pressing.
Mr Hogg was beginning to get impatient before the "ladies" rose to go.
"I'll see ye intae the cairt," said Auntie Bell to Mona, when the
first farewells had been said, "Rachel'll come whan she gits on her
bannet."
As soon as they were in the garden, the old woman laid her hand
impressively on Mona's arm.
"Are ye onything weel pit up wi' Rachel?" she whispered.
"Oh yes, indeed."
Auntie Bell shook her head. "It's no' the place for the like o'
you," she said, and then further conversation was prevented by Miss
Simpson's appearance.
"Well, you'll be in to see us soon," she said.
"Eh, I daursay you'll be here again first."
"_I_ will, certainly," said Mona. "I mean to walk out and see you
some day."
"Hoot awa', lassie. It's ower far. Ye canna walk frae Borrowness.
Tak' the train----"
"Can't I?" laughed Mona, as Mr Hogg drove off.
"Why, why, _why_," she thought as they trotted down to Kilwinnie,
"did not the Fates give me Auntie Bell for my hostess instead of
Rachel Simpson?"