“Oh ay,” said Mrs. Glen, on her way home from church. “The Earl’s-hall family makes a great work with our Rob. He’s there morning, noon, and nicht. I never see him, for my part. Either he’s drawing pictures of the house, or he’s learning Miss Margret to draw them, or he’s doin’ something for Sir Ludovic. They take up a’ his time that he never does a hand’s turn for his ain affairs. It’s an awfu’ waste of time; but when there are young folk concerned, really you never can ken what’s the maist profitable occupation; just nonsense, in that kind of way, is sometimes mair for their advantage in the long-run; but that’s no my way of judging in the general, far enough from my way.”
“That is just what I was thinking,” said Mrs. Cupar, of the Longriggs, a neighboring farm, but a much more important one. If Mrs. Cupar walked, it was because she chose to do so, not from any need to employ this vulgar natural mode of locomotion; for, besides her husband’s gig, there was a pony-chaise at her orders, and her dress was made by one of the best _artistes_ in Edinburgh, and her daughters, who came behind, were young ladies who might have walked through the Park without remark, infinitely better dressed than Margaret Leslie. They were better than Margaret in a great many ways; they could play on the piano; and it was their mother’s determination to keep them clear of Rob Glen, or any other suitor of his class, that made her so “neighbor-like” with Rob Glen’s mother. If he had finished his studies in an orthodox way, and become a “placed minister,” then, indeed, she might have relaxed her vigilance; but as matters were, no fox could have been more dangerous to the hen-roost than this idle young man of education, who was only a sma’ farmer’s son. Small farmers, who cannot be denied as part of the profession, yet who sink it down among the ranks of the commonalty, are not liked by their larger neighbors in the kingdom of Fife.
“That is just what I was thinking,” said Mrs. Cupar. “I did not imagine you were one who would give in to idleness under any excuse.”
“No me,” said Mrs. Glen; “if my lad had taken up his head with foreign travel, and wanderings about the world like that son of the minister’s, Randal--no that it’s our place to judge our neighbors; but there is a time for everything, as is said in Scripture, and I’ve confidence in my Rob that it’s no just for nothing his stopping here so long. They make a great work with him at Earl’s-hall. Sir Ludovic, you see for yourself, is very frail. How he grippit to Rob’s arm! It’s a grand thing for an auld man to find a young arm to lean upon, and a kind person to be good to him.”