“Did I ever hear?” she said. “I would like to know, Kirsteen Douglas, what it is I havena heard in my long pilgrimage of nigh upon seventy years. But there’s a time for everything. If ye ask me at another moment I’ll tell ye the whole story. Is it you, Drumcarro, that takes no sugar in your tea? No doubt you’ve had plenty in your time in yon dreadful West Indies where you were so long.”
“What’s dreadful about them?” said Drumcarro. “It’s ignorance that makes ye say so. Ye would think ye were in paradise if ye were there.”
“Oh, never with all those meeserable slaves!”
“You’re just a set of idiots with your prejudices,” said the laird, who had finished his herrings and pushed away his plate. “Slaves, quo’ she! There’s few of them would change places, I can tell ye, with your crofters and such like that ye call free men.”
“Ye were looking for something, father,” said Mary.
“I’m looking for that mutton bone,” said her father. “Fish is a fine thing; but there’s nothing like a bit of butcher’s meat to begin the day upon.”
“It’s my ain curing,” said Miss Eelen. “Ye can scarcely call it butcher’s meat, and it’s just a leg of one of your own sheep, Drumcarro. Cry upon the lassie, Kirsteen, and she’ll bring it ben in a moment. We’re so used to womenfolk in this house, we just forget a man’s appetite. I can recommend the eggs, for they’re all our own laying. Two-three hens just makes all the difference in a house; ye never perceive their feeding, and there’s aye a fresh egg for an occasion. And so you were pleased with your ball? I’m glad of it, for it’s often not the case when lassies are young and have no acquaintance with the world. They expect ower much. They think they’re to get all the attention like the heroines in thae foolish story-books. But that’s a delusion that soon passes away. And then you’re thankful for what you get, which is a far more wholesome frame of mind.”
Kirsteen assented to this with a grave face, and a little sigh for the beautiful visions of ideal pleasure which she had lost.
But Mary bridled, and declared that all her expectations had been fulfilled. “I got a great deal of attention,” she said, “and perhaps I had not such grand fancies as other folk.”
“I have bidden Glendochart to come and see us at Drumcarro. Ye’ll have to see to the spare cha’amer, and that he gets a good dinner,” said Mr. Douglas. “Him and me we have many things in common. He’s one of the best of his name, with a good record behind him--not to match with our auld Douglas line, but nothing to snuff at, and not far off the head of the house himsel’.”