Warlock o Glenwarlock | Page 8

laird himsel'?" answered Grizzie, "Wha's to come
atween father an' son wi' licht upo' family-affairs? No even the mistress
hersel' wad hae prezhunt upo' that?"
"Keep your own place, Grizzie," said the old lady with dignity.
And Grizzie, who, had gone farther in the cause of propriety, than
propriety itself could justify, held her peace. Only the potatoes splashed
yet louder in the bowl. Her mistress sat grimly silent, for though she
had had the last word and had been obeyed, she was rebuked in herself.
Cosmo, judging the specialty of the interview over, turned and went
back to his father's chair; but just as he was seating himself in it, his
father appeared in the doorway.
The form was that of a tall, thin man, a little bent at the knees and
bowed in the back, who yet carried himself with no small dignity,
cloaked in an air of general apology--as if he would have said, "I am
sorry my way is not yours, for I see very well how wrong you must

think it." He wore large strong shoes--I think a description should begin
with the feet rather than the head--fit for boggy land; blue, ribbed,
woollen stockings; knee-breeches of some home-made stuff: all the
coarser cloth they wore, and they wore little else, was shorn from their
own sheep, and spun, woven, and made at home; an old blue dress coat
with bright buttons; a drab waistcoat which had once been yellow; and
to crown all, a red woollen nightcap, hanging down on one side with a
tassel.
"Weel, Grizzie!" he said, in a gentle, rather sad voice, as if the days of
his mourning were not yet ended, "I'm ower sune the day!"
He never passed Grizzie without greeting her, and Grizzie's devotion to
him was like that of slave and sister mingled.
"Na, laird," she answered, "ye can never be ower sune for yer ain fowk,
though ye may be for yer ain stamack. The taties winna be lang bilin'
the day. They're some sma'."
"That's because you pare them so much, Grizzie," said the
grandmother.
Grizzie vouchsafed no reply.
The moment young Cosmo saw whose shadow darkened the doorway,
he rose in haste, and standing with his hand upon the arm of the chair,
waited for his father to seat himself in it. The laird acknowledged his
attention with a smile, sat down, and looked like the last sitter grown
suddenly old. He put out his hand to the boy across the low arm of the
chair, and the boy laid his hand in his father's, and so they remained,
neither saying a word. The laird leaned back, and sat resting. All were
silent.
Notwithstanding the oddity of his dress, no one who had any
knowledge of humanity could have failed to see in Cosmo Warlock, the
elder, a high bred gentleman. His face was small, and the skin of it was
puckered into wrinkles innumerable; his mouth was sweet, but he had
lost his teeth, and the lips had fallen in; his chin, however, was large
and strong; while his blue eyes looked out from under his narrow high
forehead with a softly piercing glance of great gentleness and benignity.
A little gray hair clustered about his temples and the back of his
head--the red nightcap hid the rest. There was three days' growth of
gray beard on his chin, for NOW THAT HE HAD NOBODY, he
would say, he had not the heart to shave every morning.

For some time he sat looking straight before him, smiling to his
mother's hands as they knitted, she casting on him now and then a look
that seemed to express the consciousness of blame for not having made
a better job of him, or for having given him too much to do in the care
of himself. For neither did his mother believe in him farther than that
he had the best possible intentions in what he did, or did not do. At the
same time she never doubted he was more of a man than ever his son
would be, seeing they had such different mothers.
"Grizzie," said the laird, "hae ye a drappy o' soor milk? I'm some dry."
"Ay, that hae I, sir!" answered Grizzie with alacrity, and rising went
into the darker region behind the kitchen, whence presently she
emerged with a white basin full of rich milk--half cream, it was indeed.
Without explanation or apology she handed it to her master, who
received and drank it off.
"Hoots, woman!" he said, "ye wad hae me a shargar (A
SKIN-AND-BONE CALF)! That's no soor milk!"
"I'm vexed it's no to yer taste, laird!" returned Grizzie coolly, "but I hae
nane better."
"Ye tellt me ye had soor milk," said the laird--without a particle