I learned afterwards that the laird, from being a spendthrift in his
youth, had become a miser in his age, and that every household
arrangement was on the narrowest scale. From wasting righteous pounds,
he had come to scraping unrighteous farthings.
After we had remained standing for some time, the housekeeper
returned, and invited my father to go to the laird's room. As they
went, he requested her to take me to the kitchen, which, after
conducting him, she did. The sight of the fire, although it was of the
smallest, was most welcome. She laid a few more peats upon it, and
encouraged them to a blaze, remarking, with a sidelong look: "We
daren't do this, you see, sir, if the laird was about. The honest man
would call it waste."
"Is he dying?" I asked, for the sake of saying something; but she only
shook her head for reply, and, going to a press at the other end of
the large, vault-like kitchen, brought me some milk in a basin, and
some oatcake upon a platter, saying,
"It's not my house, you see, or I would have something better to set
before the minister's son."
I was glad of any food however, and it was well for me that I ate
heartily. I had got quite warm also before my father stepped into the
kitchen, very solemn, and stood up with his back to the fire. The old
woman set him a chair, but he neither sat down nor accepted the
refreshment which she humbly offered him.
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