“Oh, I’m not afraid,” said the calm youth. “She knows better; there’s ten of us, and some one of the family comes to grief most days, you know. She’s used to that. Besides, I’ll get home long before Sir Thomas. It’s only four now, and I suppose one could walk down from here--how soon?” All this time he went on so steadily at the scones and the milk, that the heart of the farmer’s wife warmed to the possessor of such a frank and appreciative appetite.
“You might put the horse in the gig and drive the young gentleman down,” said the soft-hearted woman; “or Colin could row him in the boat as far as the pier. It’s a lang walk for such a callant, and you’re no thrang. It’s awfu’ to think o’ the rain, how it’s taking the bread out of us poor folk’s mouths; but to be sure it’s the Lord’s will--if it be na,” said the homely speculator, “that the weather’s ane of the things that has been permitted, for wise reasons, to fa’ into Ither Hands; and I’m sure, judging by the way it comes just when it’s no’ wanted, ane might think so, mony a time, in this country side. But ah! it’s sinfu’ to speak,--and look at yon bonnie rainbow,” she continued, turning to the window with her baby in her arms.
Young Frankland got up slowly as he finished his scone. He was only partially sensible of the extreme beauty of the scene before him; but the farmer’s wife stood with her baby in her arms, with hidden lights kindling in her soft eyes, expanding and beaming over the lovely landscape. It did her good like a cordial; though even Colin, her sensible husband, looked on, with a smile upon his good-humoured countenance, and was a little amused and much puzzled, as he had been a hundred times before--seeing his wife’s pleasure in those common and every-day processes of nature, to know why.