Part 72 (2/2)
Lord Rintoul returned to his English estates, and never revisited the Spittal. The last thing I heard of him was that he had been offered the Lord-Lieutenants.h.i.+p of a county, and had accepted it in a long letter, in which he began by pointing out his unworthiness.
This undid him, for the Queen, or her councillors, thinking from his first page that he had declined the honor, read no further, and appointed another man. Waster Lunny is still alive, but has gone to another farm. Sanders Webster, in his grat.i.tude, wanted Nanny to become an Auld Licht, but she refused, saying, ”Mr. Dishart is worth a dozen o' Mr. Duthie, and I'm terrible fond o' Mrs. Dishart, but Established I was born and Established I'll remain till I'm carried out o' this house feet foremost.”
”But Nanny went to Heaven for all that,” my little maid told me.
”Jean says people can go to Heaven though they are not Auld Lichts, but she says it takes them all their time. Would you like me to tell you a story about my mother putting gla.s.s on the manse dike? Well, my mother and my father is very fond of each other, and once they was in the garden, and my father kissed my mother, and there was a woman watching them over the dike, and she cried out--something naughty.”
”It was Tibbie Birse,” I said, ”and what she cried was, 'Mercy on us, that's the third time in half an hour!' So your mother, who heard her, was annoyed, and put gla.s.s on the wall.”
”But it's me that is telling you the story. You are sure you don't know it? Well, they asked father to take the gla.s.s away, and he wouldn't; but he once preached at mother for having a white feather in her bonnet, and another time he preached at her for being too fond of him. Jean told me. That's all.”
No one seeing Babbie going to church demurely on Gavin's arm could guess her history. Sometimes I wonder whether the desire to be a gypsy again ever comes over her for a mad hour, and whether, if so, Gavin takes such measures to cure her as he threatened in Caddam Wood. I suppose not; but here is another story:
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”THERE WAS A WOMAN WATCHING THEM OVER THE DIKE.”]
”When I ask mother to tell me about her once being a gypsy she says I am a bad 'quisitive little girl, and to put on my hat and come with her to the prayer-meeting; and when I asked father to let me see mother's gypsy frock he made me learn Psalm forty-eight by heart. But once I see'd it, and it was a long time ago, as long as a week ago.
Micah Dow gave me rowans to put in my hair, and I like Micah because he calls me Miss, and so I woke in my bed because there was noises, and I ran down to the parlor, and there was my mother in her gypsy frock, and my rowans was in her hair, and my father was kissing her, and when they saw me they jumped; and that's all.”
”Would you like me to tell you another story? It is about a little girl. Well, there was once a minister and his wife, and they hadn't no little girls, but just little boys, and G.o.d was sorry for them, so He put a little girl in a cabbage in the garden, and when they found her they were glad. Would you like me to tell you who the little girl was?
Well, it was me, and, ugh! I was awful cold in the cabbage. Do you like that story?”
”Yes; I like it best of all the stories I know.”
”So do I like it, too. Couldn't n.o.body help loving me, 'cause I'm so nice? Why am I so fearful nice?”
”Because you are like your grandmother.”
”It was clever of my father to know when he found me in the cabbage that my name was Margaret. Are you sorry grandmother is dead?”
”I am glad your mother and father were so good to her and made her so happy.”
”Are you happy?”
”Yes.”
”But when I am happy I laugh.”
”I am old, you see, and you are young.”
”I am nearly six. Did you love grandmother? Then why did you never come to see her? Did grandmother know you was here? Why not? Why didn't I not know about you till after grandmother died?”
”I'll tell you when you are big.”
”Shall I be big enough when I am six?”
”No, not till your eighteenth birthday.”
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