"Gude kens!" says Doig, with a shrug.
"She'll have gone home to Lady Allardyce, I'm thinking," said I.
"That'll be it," said he.
"Then I'll gang there straight," says I.
"But ye'll be for a bite or ye go?" said he.
"Neither bite nor sup," said I. "I had a good wauch of milk in by
Ratho."
"Aweel, aweel," says Doig. "But ye'll can leave your horse here
and your bags, for it seems we're to have your up-put."
"Na, na", said I. "Tamson's mear {17} would never be the thing for
me this day of all days."
Doig speaking somewhat broad, I had been led by imitation into an
accent much more countrified than I was usually careful to affect a
good deal broader, indeed, than I have written it down; and I was
the more ashamed when another voice joined in behind me with a
scrap of a ballad:
"Gae saddle me the bonny black,
Gae saddle sune and mak' him ready
For I will down the Gatehope-slack,
And a' to see my bonny leddy."
The young lady, when I turned to her, stood in a morning gown, and
her hands muffled in the same, as if to hold me at a distance. Yet
I could not but think there was kindness in the eye with which she
saw me.
"My best respects to you, Mistress Grant," said I, bowing.
"The like to yourself, Mr. David," she replied with a deep
courtesy. "And I beg to remind you of an old musty saw, that meat
and mass never hindered man. The mass I cannot afford you, for we
are all good Protestants. But the meat I press on your attention.
And I would not wonder but I could find something for your private
ear that would be worth the stopping for."
"Mistress Grant," said I, "I believe I am already your debtor for
some merry words--and I think they were kind too--on a piece of
unsigned paper."
"Unsigned paper?" says she, and made a droll face, which was
likewise wondrous beautiful, as of one trying to remember.
"Or else I am the more deceived," I went on. "But to be sure, we
shall have the time to speak of these, since your father is so good
as to make me for a while your inmate; and the GOMERAL begs you at
this time only for the favour of his liberty,"
"You give yourself hard names," said she.
"Mr. Doig and I would be blythe to take harder at your clever pen,"
says I.
"Once more I have to admire the discretion of all men-folk," she
replied. "But if you will not eat, off with you at once; you will
be back the sooner, for you go on a fool's errand. Off with you,
Mr. David," she continued, opening the door.
"He has lowpen on his bonny grey,
He rade the richt gate and the ready
I trow he would neither stint nor stay,
For he was seeking his bonny leddy."
I did not wait to be twice bidden, and did justice to Miss Grant's
citation on the way to Dean.
Old Lady Allardyce walked there alone in the garden, in her hat and
mutch, and having a silver-mounted staff of some black wood to lean
upon. As I alighted from my horse, and drew near to her with
CONGEES, I could see the blood come in her face, and her head fling
into the air like what I had conceived of empresses.
"What brings you to my poor door?" she cried, speaking high through
her nose. "I cannot bar it. The males of my house are dead and
buried; I have neither son nor husband to stand in the gate for me;
any beggar can pluck me by the baird {18}--and a baird there is,
and that's the worst of it yet?" she added partly to herself.
I was extremely put out at this reception, and the last remark,
which seemed like a daft wife's, left me near hand speechless.
"I see I have fallen under your displeasure, ma'am," said I. "Yet
I will still be so bold as ask after Mistress Drummond."
She considered me with a burning eye, her lips pressed close
together into twenty creases, her hand shaking on her staff. "This
cows all!" she cried. "Ye come to me to speir for her? Would God
I knew!"
"She is not here?" I cried.