Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/276

272 glanced his sharp considerate eyes on the young maiden, to whose mind her uncle's danger seemed alone present. "Ay, ay," he resumed, "she's a well-favoured lass, and I'll warrant has a gift of knowing on't; deil a doubt of that, but I am not so very auld, and have been single for seven year, and bating a sad cough, which I can mend when I like for sixpence, and sundry grey hairs, the lass may have sillier woosters than me. When I cock my bonnet, and put on my crousest coat, and give my horse a tasting of corn, and then a tasting of the spur, I think the quean will no be a drapsblood to her uncle if she say me nay. And the lassie, too, is modest of demeanour, she wears nae silver in her shoon, nor frights the fowls with the feathers of her cap; and weel I mind it was her thrifty mother's boast that she should never sit on a sark till she could spin ane. I'll warrant her a gallant lassie, and a gude guider of gear. I should like to lead her to a brankan bridal." And, resuming his search of a suitable chapter, he withdrew his looks from the maid, who with brimful eyes, a troubled brow, and quivering hands, ministered to the sick man.

Her pure sincerity of heart won its way to auld Warlsworm's bosom, frozen as it seemed, and shut up resolutely against the charities of nature. "Ah, Bessie, lass," he murmured, "thy uncle maun leave the bonnie links of Orr, and the gowany braeside of Dee. Many a tug, and many a toiled brow, has it cost him to get them; but the strength of man cannot endure like the hills, nor his spirit flow for ever, like a running stream. And talking of running streams, that reminds me that Miller Macmillan owes me a year's rent, past on Tuesday; gar Jack Candlish gang and fetch it: the miller's a sicker ane; he thinks my dam is nearly run, and that my wheel of existence lacks the water of life, and sae he'll keep up the rent till my head's happit, and then wheedle or swear thee out on't. So that's settled, and my spirit's all the calmer for it. And now for thee, lass, ye'll be a rich quean, Bessie, and the lads will like ye nae the waur because he who lived before ye had a gathering eye and a sicker grip. But ye maun never wear a towering bonnet with a long feather; for that is an abomination in devout eyes, and a sad drain for the pocket; and sair I slighted bonnie Jenny Duff for the pride of her apparel: wear the snood of maiden singleness as lang as ye can, lassie; and, if ye maun be a wife, wear a douce hood, or a devout mutch;