Scotch Marriages, Volume 1 by Sarah Tytler

Eppie Meffin had returned with her soldier, a full-blown sergeant / in possession of a comfortable pension, to settle in her native / village. And Jean went to congratulate her old friend, but found that / condolences instead of congratulations were in requisition.

Eppie stood bathed in tears with her good bonnet and shawl thrown on / anyhow, in her haste to set out for the Dalroy railway-station, which / was now within three miles of the village, while the train stopped for / five minutes at another station a mile from Logan, on its way to a / place of greater note.

‘Come a bittie with me, Jean, it's lang since we've seen ane anither, / lass. I take your early visit very kind, and am fain to hear your / cracks, ‘but I canna stop to speak to you,' said Eppie, without waiting / to be questioned on the cause of her distress.

Jean complied with the petition, excited almost out of her staid / maidenly composure. And her companion was not slow to pour forth her / lamentations over the misfortune that had befallen her, through all / that was left of her kindred.

‘Oo, aye, it's that unlucky Bob: you may be satisfied now, Jean, you / ha'e lived to see vengeance execut' on him -- as they say, it's aye / ta'en -- even in this world, on the deceivers and deserters o' women.'

‘Me satisfied! ' cried Jean in unfeigned horror; ‘what do you tak me / for, Eppie Meffin? Do you think I wish, or ha'e ever wished, an ill / wish on your brither? You're speakin' like an unregenerate heathen. / Is't his ae bit laddie? ' inquired Jean almost tenderly.

‘It's a hantle waur than the bairn,' groaned Eppie. ‘I canna help / liking the wee thing who is no accountable for a' the fash he gies; but / 'deed he would be weel awa', at rest from a' his pains.'

‘Oh! Eppie, Eppie,' said Jean reproachfully, ‘when Bob's heart is set / on this bairn, and ane can never tell what the silliest callant may / come through, and live, and grow to; you a mither yoursel' to speak sic / words!'

‘You speak o' me bein' a mither,' said Eppie with a half-choked voice, / ‘woman, you dinna ken what the outcome o' a mither's love may lead to, / though you're gude -- you were aye a gude lass, Jean Kinloch. There's / my ain brisk mannie Peter. Do you think if I had the choice, and if I / kenned I was to be ta'en away frae him, and his father was to forfeit / his pension and become superannuate', I wouldna rather choose to have / a' the briskness ta'en out of my laddie, and see him lying still -- never / to stir mair -- only fit for the mools, than look forward to a chance of / his comin' to want, and fa'n on the parish, and being knocked about and / scorned, and treated to a dog's life?'

‘Then it's Bob himsel',' said Jean briefly.

‘Wha else should it be? ' demanded Eppie, made peevish by her grief.

‘Ye dinna say he's dead? ' said Jean, with white lips.

‘No dead outricht,' said Eppie, not so grateful as she ought to have / been for the great respite, never having contemplated the extremity, / ‘but he is no muckle better, so far as being a bread-winner is / concerned. He was trying to break in a maisterfu' horse, when it turned / and flung at him, and struck him atween the elbow and the shouther. / His arm -- and it's his richt ane -- is that melled the doctor is feared / the banes will never gang thegither again, and he may have to cut it / aff bodily. If poor Bob survive the operation, and be left an ae-armed / man, he'll no even be fit for a hag man' (the used-up man who is the / cattle-feeder on a farm). His maister may do something for him, so long / as he lives, since the hurt was got in his service, but Bob cannot be / allowed mair than will provide for his ain bite and sup, and what is / to become of his bairns even in his lifetime Gude can tell. Me and my / man micht take ane o' the halflin lassies, but we could do nae mair; / and little as the like o' her is gude for, she's like to be ill spared / with her faither as weel as her little brither thrown on her and her / sister's care. Pity me! for the care, wi' the auldest of the twa hardly / in her teens. Now, Jean, when you've heard a' will you flee out on me / again for wishing the weary wean were safe in a better place?'

Jean was silent in the magnitude of the calamity.

At this moment Eppie had only one complaint to make of the victim, / and she did not dream of including Jean in it, for Eppie was a loyal / friend as well as an attached sister. She had heard already how Bob / as a widower had ventured to make up to Jean Kinloch again, and so / far from approving of the venture, Eppie, in fairness to her sex, and / still more in fairness to Jean, had said stoutly, unswayed by family / interest and partiality, that Bob was rightly served in the repulse he / had received. He had no reason to count on any other answer. He was / both bold and simple to speer Jean Kinloch's price a second time. There / had always been a simplicity about him, poor chap, though he was no / fool either. Doubtless that had been the cause of his falling an easy / victim to the wiles of that light-headed cutty Leezbeth Red -- that Eppie / should miscall the dead. But Eppie's auld mother, who had a great work / with Jean, could never abide Leezbeth. Thus Eppie took refuge from any / self-reproach for the disparaging criticism on her late sister-in-law, / by regarding it as a mark of filial respect.