Page:Cuthbert Bede--Verdant Green married and done for.djvu/18

10 presentable; and, as their mother one day proudly remarked, they were "douce, sonsy bairns, wi' weel-faur'd nebs; and, for puir folks, would be weel tochered." Upon which our hero said "Indeed!" which, as he had not the slightest idea what the good woman meant, was, perhaps, the wisest remark that he could have made.



One of them was generally to be found spinning at her muckle wheel, retiring and advancing to the music of its cheerful hum, the while her spun thread was rapidly coiled up on the spindle. The others, as they busied themselves in their household duties, or brightened up the delf and pewter, and set it out on the shelf to its best advantage, would join in some plaintive Scotch ballad, with such good taste and skill that our friends would frequently love to linger within hearing, though out of sight. But these artless ditties were sometimes specially sung for them when they paid the cottage-room a visit, and sat around its canopied, projecting fire-place. For, old Andrew was a great smoker; and little Mr. Bouncer was exceedingly fond of waylaying him on his return home, and "blowing a cloud" with so loquacious and novel a companion. And Mr. Verdant Green sometimes joined him in these visits; on which occasions, as harmony was the order of the day, he would do his best to further it by singing "Marble Halls," or any other song that his limited repertoire could boast; while old Andrew would burst into "Tullochgorum," or do violence to "Get up and bar the door."

It must be confessed, that the conversation at such times was sustained not without difficulty. Old Andrew, his wife, and the major portion of his family, were barely able to understand the language of their guests, whom they persisted in generalising as "cannie Soothrons;" while the guests, on their part, could not