“Weel,” said the old woman, “we canna expect that Glasco, a miserable, black, dirty town as ever was, can be like the Hielands with its bonny hills and its bright sun. But, my honey, if ye let me say sae, there’s good and bad in baith places, and Glasco’s no so ill as it looks. Will ye lie down and take a bit rest, now you’re here--or will I make ye a cup of tea? The broth will not be ready for an hour. If I had kent sooner I would have got ye a chuckie or something mair delicate; but there wasna time.”
Kirsteen protested that she neither wanted rest nor tea, and would like the broth which was the natural everyday food, better than anything. She came into the parlour and sat down looking out from the height of her present elevation upon the green below, covered with white patches in the form of various washings which the people near had the privilege of bleaching on the grass. The abundant sweet air so near the crowded and noisy streets, the freedom of that sudden escape from the dark lands and houses, the unlooked-for quiet and cheerful prospect stirred up her spirit. The lassies going about with bare feet, threading their way among the lines of clothes, sprinkling them with sparkling showers of water which dazzled in the sun, awakened the girl’s envy as she sat with her hands crossed in her lap. A flock of mill-girls were crossing the green to their work at one of the cotton-factories. They were clothed in petticoats and short gowns, or bedgowns as they are called in England, bound round their waists with a trim white apron. Some of them had tartan shawls upon their shoulders. A number of them were barefooted, but one and all had shining and carefully dressed hair done up in elaborate plaits and braids. Kirsteen’s eyes followed them with a sort of envy. They were going to their work, they were carrying on the common tenor of their life, while she sat there arrested in everything. “I wish,” she said, with a sigh, “I had something to do.”
“The best thing you can do is just to rest. Ye often do not find the fatigue of a journey,” said Mrs. Macgregor, “till it’s over. Ye’ll be more and more tired as the day goes on, and ye’ll sleep fine at night.”
With these and similar platitudes the old woman soothed her guest; and Kirsteen soothed her soul as well as she could to quiet, though now when the first pause occurred she felt more and more the eagerness to proceed, the impossibility of stopping short. To cut herself adrift from all the traditions of her life in order to rest in this little parlour, even for a day, and look out upon the bleaching of the clothes, and the mill-girls going to work, had the wildest inappropriateness in it. She seized upon the half-knitted stocking, without which in those days no good housewife was complete, and occupied her hands with that. But towards evening another subject was introduced, which delivered Kirsteen at once from the mild _ennui_ of this compulsory pause.