Warlock o Glenwarlock | Page 9

of
offence, rather in the tone of apology for having by mistake made away
with something too good for him.
"Weel, laird," replied Grizzie, "it's naething but the guidman's milk; an'
gien ye dinna ken what's guid for ye at your time o' life, it's weel there
sud be anither 'at does. What has a man o' your 'ears to du drinkin' soor
milk--eneuch to turn a' soor thegither i' the inside o' ye! It's true I win'
ye weel a sma' bairn i' my leddy's airms--
"Ye may weel du that!" interrupted her mistress.
"I wasna weel intil my teens, though, my leddy!" returned Grizzie. "An'
I'm sure," she added, in revenge for the insinuation as to her age, "it
wad ill become ony wuman to grudge a man o' the laird's stan'in a drap
o' the best milk in's ain cellar!"
"Who spoke of refusing it to him?" said his mother.
"Ye spak yersel' sic an' siclike," answered Grizzie.
"Hoots, Grizzie! haud yer tongue, my wuman," said the laird, in the
gentlest tone, yet with reproof in it. "Ye ken weel it's no my mother
wad grudge me the milk ye wad gie me. It was but my'sel' 'at didna
think mysel' worthy o' that same, seein' it's no a week yet sin' bonny

Hawkie dee'd!"
"An' wad ye hae the Lord's anintit depen' upo' Hawkie?" cried Grizzie
with indignation.
The contest went no farther, and Grizzie had had the best of it, as none
knew better than she. In a minute or two the laird rose and went out,
and Cosmo went with him.
Before Cosmo's mother died, old Mrs. Warlock would have been
indignant at the idea of sitting in the kitchen, but things had combined
to bring her to it. She found herself very lonely seated in state in the
drawing-room, where, as there was no longer a daughter-in-law to go
and come, she learned little or nothing of what was doing about the
place, and where few that called cared to seek her out, for she had
never been a favourite with the humbler neighbours. Also, as time went
on, and the sight of money grew rarer and rarer, it became more
desirable to economize light in the winter. They had not come to that
with firing, for, as long as there were horses and intervals of less labour
on the farm, peats were always to be had--though at the same time, the
drawing-room could not be made so warm as the kitchen. But for light,
even for train-oil to be burned in the simplest of lamps, money had to
be paid--and money was of all ordinary things the seldomest seen at
Castle Warlock. From these operative causes it came by degrees, that
one winter, for the sake of company, of warmth, of economy, Mistress
Warlock had her chair carried to the kitchen; and the thing once done, it
easily and naturally grew to a custom, and extended itself to the
summer as well; for she who had ceased to stand on ceremony in the
winter, could hardly without additional loss of dignity reascend her
pedestal only because it was summer again. To the laird it was a matter
of no consequence where he sat, ate, or slept. When his wife was alive,
wherever she was, that was the place for him; when she was gone, all
places were the same to him. There was, besides, that in the disposition
of the man which tended to the homely:--any one who imagines that in
the least synonymous with the coarse, or discourteous, or unrefined,
has yet to understand the essentials of good breeding. Hence it came
that the other rooms of the house were by degrees almost neglected.
Both the dining-room and drawing-room grew very cold, cold as with
the coldness of what is dead; and though he slept in the same part of the
house by choice, not often did the young laird enter either. But he had

concerning them, the latter in particular, a notion of vastness and
grandeur; and along with that, a vague sense of sanctity, which it is not
quite easy to define or account for. It seems however to have the same
root with all veneration for place--for if there were not a natural
inclination to venerate place, would any external reason make men
capable of it? I think we shall come at length to feel all places, as all
times and all spaces, venerable, because they are the outcome of the
eternal nature and the eternal thought. When we have God, all is holy,
and we are at home.

CHAPTER III
.
THE DRAWING-ROOM.
As soon as they were out of the kitchen-door, the boy pushed his hand
into his father's; the father grasped it, and without a word