"What is the old fool doing with the wench?" cried a sharp angry voice from the drawing-room--"why does not he come to me?" It was the voice of Lady Macadam herself, and she meant me. So I went to her; but, oh! she was in a far different state from what I had hoped. The pride of this world had got the upper hand of her, and was playing dreadful antics with understanding. There was she, painted like a Jezebel, with gum- flowers on her head, as was her custom every afternoon, sitting on a settee, for she was lame, and in her hand she held a letter. "Sir," said she, as Icame into the room, "I want you to go instantly to that young fellow, your clerk, (meaning Mr Lorimore, the schoolmaster, who was likewise session- clerk and precentor,) and tell him I will give him a couple of hundred pounds to marry Miss Malcolm without delay, and undertake to procure him a living from some of my friends.""Softly, my lady, you must first tell me the meaning of all this haste of kindness," said I, in my calm methodical manner. At the which she began to cry and sob, like a petted bairn, and to bewail her ruin, and the dishonour of her family. I was surprised, and beginning to be confounded; at length out it came. The flunkey had that night brought two London letters from the Irville post, and Kate Malcolm being out of the way when he came home, he took them both in to her ladyship on the silver server, as was his custom; and her ladyship, not jealousing that Kate could have a correspondence with London, thought both the letters were for herself, for they were franked; so, as it happened, she opened the one that was for Kate, and this, too, from the young laird, her own son. She could not believe her eyes when she saw the first words in his hand of write; and she read, and she better read, till she read all the letter, by which she came to know that Kate and her darling were trysted, and that this was not the first love-letter which had passed between them. She, therefore, tore it in pieces, and sent for me, and screamed for Kate; in short, went, as it were, off at the head, and was neither to bind nor to hold on account of this intrigue, as she, in her wrath, stigmatised the innocent gallanting of poor Kate and the young laird.
I listened in patience to all she had to say anent the discovery, and offered her the very best advice; but she derided my judgment; and because I would not speak outright to Mr Lorimore, and get him to marry Kate off hand, she bade me good-night with an air, and sent for him herself. He, however, was on the brink of marriage with his present worthy helpmate, and declined her ladyship's proposals, which angered her still more. But although there was surely a great lack of discretion in all this, and her ladyship was entirely overcome with her passion, she would not part with Kate, nor allow her to quit the house with me, but made her sup with her as usual that night, calling her sometimes aperfidious baggage, and at other times, forgetting her delirium, speaking to her as kindly as ever. At night, Kate as usual helped her ladyship into her bed, (this she told me with tears in her eyes next morning;) and when Lady Macadam, as was her wont, bent to kiss her for good-night, she suddenly recollected "the intrigue," and gave Kate such a slap on the side of the head, as quite dislocated for a time the intellects of the poor young lassie. Next morning, Kate was solemnly advised never to write again to the laird, while the lady wrote him a letter, which, she said, would be as good as a birch to the breech of the boy. Nothing, therefore, for some time, indeed, throughout the year, came of the matter; but her ladyship, when Mrs Balwhidder soon after called on her, said that I was a nose-of-wax, and that she never would speak to me again, which surely was not a polite thing to say to Mrs Balwhidder, my second wife.
This stramash was the first time I had interposed in the family concerns of my people; for it was against my nature to make or meddle with private actions saving only such as in course of nature came before the session; but I was not satisfied with the principles of Lady Macadam, and I began to be weary about Kate Malcolm's situation with her ladyship, whose ways of thinking I saw were not to be depended on, especially in those things wherein her pride and vanity were concerned. But the time ran on--the butterflies and the blossoms were succeeded by the leaves and the fruit, and nothing of a particular nature farther molested the general tranquillity of this year; about the end of which, there came on a sudden frost, after a tack of wet weather.The roads were just a sheet of ice, like a frozen river; insomuch that the coal-carts could not work; and one of our cows, (Mrs Balwhidder said, after the accident, it was our best; but it was not so much thought of before,) fell in coming from the glebe to the byre, and broke its two hinder legs, which obligated us to kill it, in order to put the beast out of pain. As this happened after we had salted our mart, it occasioned us to have a double crop of puddings, and such a show of hams in the kitchen, as was a marvel to our visitors to see.
