Scene at the Spittal.
Within an hour after I had left him, Waster Lunny
walked into the school-house and handed me his snuff-mull,
which I declined politely. It was with this ceremony
that we usually opened our conversations.
“I’ve seen the post,” he said, and
he tells me there has been a queer ploy at the Spittal.
It’s a wonder the marriage hasna been turned
into a burial, and all because o’ that Highland
stirk, Lauchlan Campbell.
Waster Lunny was a man who had to retrace his steps
in telling a story if he tried short cuts, and so
my custom was to wait patiently while he delved through
the ploughed fields that always lay between him and
his destination.
“As you ken, Rintoul’s so little o’
a Scotchman that he’s no muckle better than
an Englisher. That maun be the reason he hadna
mair sense than to tramp on a Highlandman’s ancestors,
as he tried to tramp on Lauchlan’s this day.”
“If Lord Rintoul insulted the piper,”
I suggested, giving the farmer a helping hand cautiously,
“it would be through inadvertence. Rintoul
only bought the Spittal a year ago, and until then,
I daresay, he had seldom been on our side of the Border.”
This was a foolish, interruption, for it set Walter
Lunny off in a new direction.
“That’s what Elspeth says. Says she,
’When the earl has grand estates in England,
what for does he come to a barren place like the Spittal
to be married! It’s gey like,’ she
says, ’as if he wanted the marriage to be got
by quietly; a thing,’ says she, ‘that
no woman can stand. Furthermore,’ Elspeth
says, ’how has the marriage been postponed twice?’
We ken what the servants at the Spittal says to that,
namely, that the young lady is no keen to take him,
but Elspeth winna listen to sic arguments. She
says either the earl had grown timid (as mony a man
does) when the wedding-day drew near, or else his
sister that keeps his house is mad at the thocht o’
losing her place; but as for the young leddy’s
being sweer, says Elspeth, ’an earl’s an
earl however auld he is, and a lassie’s a lassie
however young she is, and weel she kens you’re
never sure o’ a man’s no changing his mind
about you till you’re tied to him by law, after
which it doesna so muckle matter whether he changes
his mind about you or no.’ Ay, there’s
a quirk in it some gait, dominie; but it’s a
deep water Elspeth canna bottom.”
“It is,” I agreed; “but you were
to tell me what Birse told you of the disturbance
at the Spittal.”
“Ay, weel.” he answered, “the post
puts the wite o’t on her little leddyship, as
they call her, though she winna be a leddyship till
the morn. All I can say is that if the earl was
saft enough to do sic a thing out of fondness for
her, it’s time he was married on her, so that
he may come to his senses again. That’s
what I say; but Elspeth conters me, of course, and
says she, ’If the young leddy was so careless
o’ insulting other folks’ ancestors, it
proves she has nane o’ her ain; for them that
has china plates themsel’s is the maist careful
no to break the china plates of others.’”
