Flora Lyndsay Volume I Part 23

Great was the surprise of Flora, when, instead of entering the house by a front door, they walked up an interminable flight of stone stairs, every landing comprising a distinct dwelling, or flat (as it is technically termed), with the names of the proprietors marked on the doors. At last they reached the flat occupied by good Mistress Waddel, situated at the very top of this stony region. Mrs. Waddel was at the door ready to receive them. She showed them into a comfortable sitting-room with windows fronting the street, where a bright fire was blazing in a very old-fas.h.i.+oned grate. She welcomed her new lodgers with a torrent of kindly words, p.r.o.nounced in the broadest Scotch dialect, only half understood by the English portion of her audience.

A large portly personage was Mrs. Waddel,-ugly, amiable, and by no means particular in her dress; which consisted of a woollen plaid, very much faded, and both ragged and dirty. Her large mutch with its broad frills formed a sort of glory round her head, setting off to no advantage her pock-marked, flabby face, wide mouth and yellow projecting teeth. She had a comical, good-natured obliquity of vision in her prominent light-grey eyes, which were very red about the rims; and Flora thought, as she read with an inquiring eye the countenance of their landlady, that without being positively disgusting, she was the most ordinary, uncouth woman she ever beheld.

Mrs. Waddel was eloquent in the praise of her apartments, which she said had been occupied by my Leddy W. when his Majesty George the Fourth, G.o.d bless his saucy face, landed at Leith, on his visit to Scotland. Her lodgings, it seemed, had acquired quite an aristocratic character since the above-named circ.u.mstance; and not a day pa.s.sed, but the good woman enumerated all the particulars of that memorable visit. But her own autobiography was the stock theme with the good landlady. The most minute particulars of her private history she daily divulged, to the unspeakable delight of the mischievous laughter-loving James Hawke, who, because he saw that it annoyed Mrs. Lyndsay, was sure to lead the conversation slily to some circ.u.mstance which never failed to place the honest-hearted Scotchwoman on her high-horse: and then she would talk,-ye G.o.ds!-how she would talk-and splutter away in her broad provincial dialect, until the wicked boy was convulsed with laughter.

"Ay, Mister Jeames," she would say, "ye will a' be maken' yer fun o' a'

puir auld bodie, but 'tis na' cannie o' ye."

"Making fun of _you_, Mrs. Waddel," said he, with a sly glance at Flora, "how can you take such an odd notion into your head! It is so good of you to tell me all about your courts.h.i.+p: it's giving me a hint of how I'm to go about it when I'm a man. I am sure you were a very pretty, smart girl in your young days"-with another quizzical glance at Flora.

The old lady drew herself up, and smiled approvingly upon her black-eyed tormentor.

"Na, na, Mister Jeames, my gude man that's dead an' gane said to me, the verra day that he made me his ain-'Katie, ye are nae bonnie, but ye a'

gude, which is a' hantle better.'"

"No doubt he was right, Mrs. Waddel; but I really think he was very ungallant to say so on his wedding-day, and did not do you half justice."

"Weel, weel," said the good dame, "every ain to his taste. He was not ow'r gifted that way himsel; but we are nane sensible o' our ain defects."

The great attraction in the small, windowless closet in which James slept, was an enormous calabash, which her son, the idol of Mrs.

Waddel's heart, had brought home with him from the South Seas. Over this calabash, the simple-hearted mother daily rehea.r.s.ed all the wonderful adventures she had gathered from that individual, during his short visits home; and as she possessed a surprisingly retentive memory, her maternal reminiscences would have filled volumes,-to all of which James listened with the most earnest attention, not on account of the adventures, for they were commonplace enough, but for the mere pleasure of hearing Mrs. Waddel talk broad Scotch, from which he seemed to derive the most ludicrous enjoyment. Mrs. Waddel had two daughters, to whom nature had been less bountiful than even to herself. Tall, awkward, shapeless dawdles, whose unlovely youth was more repulsive than the mother's full-blown, homely age,-with them the old lady's innocent obliquity of vision had degenerated into a downright squint, and the redness round the rims of their large, fishy-looking, light eyes, gave the idea of perpetual weeping,-a pair of Niobes, versus the beauty, whose swollen orbs were always dissolved in tears. They crept slip-shod about the house, their morning wrappers fitting so easily their slovenly figures, that you expected to see them suddenly fall to the ground, and the young ladies walk on in native simplicity.

"My daughters are like mysel-na' bonnie," said Mrs. Waddel. "They dinna'

tak' wi' the men folk, wha look mair to comeliness than gudeness now-a-days in a wife. A' weel, every dog maun ha' his day, an' they may get husbands yet.

"I weel remember, when Noncy was a bairn, she was the maist ugsome wee thing I ever clappit an e'e upon. My Leddy W. lodged in this verra room, in the which we are no' sittin'. She had a daughter nearly a woman grown, an' I was in my sma' back parlour was.h.i.+n' an' dressin' the bairn.

In runs my Leddy Grace, an' she stood an' lookit an' lookit a lang time at the naked bairn in my lap: at last she clappit her hands an' she called oot to her mither-'Mamma! Mamma! for gudeness sake, come here, an' look at this ugly, blear-eyed, bandy-legget child!-I never saw sic an object in a' my life!'

"It made my heart sair to hear her despise a creture made in G.o.d's image in that way, an' I bursted into tears, an' said-'My leddy, yer a bad Christian to spier in that way o' my puir bairn, an' that in the hearin'

of its ain mither. May G.o.d forgive you! but you ha' a hard heart.' She was verra angry at my reproof, but my Leddy W. just then came in, an'

she said, with one of her ain gracious smiles-'For shame! Grace; the bairn's weel enough. Let us hope she maun prove a' blessin' to her parents. The straightest tree does na always bear the finest fruit.'

"I ha' met wi' mony crosses and sair trials in my day; but few o' them made me shed bitterer tears than that proud, handsom' young leddy's speech on the deformity o' my puir bairn."

Flora stood reproved in her own eyes, for she knew she had regarded the poor ugly girls with feelings of repugnance, on account of their personal defects. Even Jim, careless and reckless though he was, possessed an excellent heart, and he looked grave, and turned to the window, and tried to hum a tune, to get rid of an unpleasant sensation about his throat, which Mrs. Waddel's artless words had suddenly produced.

"Hang me!" he muttered half aloud, "if I ever laugh at the poor girls again!"

Mrs. Waddel had in common with most of her s.e.x, a great predilection for going to auctions; and scarcely a day pa.s.sed without her making some wonderful bargains. For a mere trifle she had bought a 'gude pot, only upon inspection it turned out to be miserably leaky. A nice pallia.s.se, which on more intimate acquaintance proved alive with gentry with whom the most republican body would not wish to be on intimate terms. Jim was always joking the old lady upon her bargains, greatly to the edification of Betty Fraser, a black-eyed Highland girl, who was Mistress Waddel's prime minister in the culinary department.

"Weel, Mister Jeames, jist ha' yer laugh oot, but when ye get a glint o'

the bonnie table I bought this mornin' for three an' saxpence, ye'll be noo' makin' game o' me ony mair, I'm thinkin'. Betty, ye maun jist step ow'r the curb-stane to the broker's, an' bring hame the table."

Away sped the nimble-footed Betty, and we soon heard the clattering of the table, as the leaves flapped to and fro as she lugged it up the public stairs.

"Now for the great bargain!" exclaimed the saucy Jim; "I think, Mrs.

Waddel, I'll buy it of you, as my venture to Canada."

"Did ye ever!" exclaimed the old lady, her eyes brightening as Betty dragged in the last bargain, and placed it triumphantly before her mistress. Like the Marquis of Anglesea, it had been in the wars, and with a terrible clatter, the incomparable table fell prostrate to the floor. Betty opened her great black eyes with a glance of blank astonishment, and raising her hands with a tragic air which was perfectly irresistible, exclaimed, "Mercy me, but it wants a fut!"

"A what?" screamed Jim, as he sank beside the fallen table and rolled upon the ground in a fit of irrepressible merriment; "Do, for Heaven's sake, tell me the English for a fut. Oh dear, I shall die! Why do you make such funny purchases, Mrs. Waddel, and suffer Betty to show them off in such a funny way? You will be the death of me, indeed you will; and then, what will my Mammy say?"

To add to this ridiculous scene, Mrs. Waddel's grey parrot, who was not the least important personage in her establishment, having been presented to her by her sailor son, fraternised with the prostrate lad, and echoed his laughter in the most outrageous manner.

"Whist, Poll! Hould yer clatter. It's no laughing matter to lose three an' saxpence in buying the like o' that."

Mrs. Waddel did not attend another auction during the month the Lyndsays occupied her lodgings. With regard to Betty Fraser, Jim picked up a page out of her history, which greatly amused Flora Lyndsay, who delighted in the study of human character. We will give it here.

Betty Fraser's first mistress was a Highland lady, who had married and settled in Edinburgh. On her first confinement, she could fancy no one but a Highland girl to take care of the babe, when the regular nurse was employed about her own person. She therefore wrote to her mother to send her by the first vessel which sailed for Edinburgh, a good, simple-hearted girl, whom she could occasionally trust with the baby.

Betty, who was a tenant's daughter, and a humble scion of the great family tree, duly arrived by the next s.h.i.+p.

She was a hearty, healthy, rosy girl of fourteen, as rough as her native wilds, with a mind so free from guile that she gave a literal interpretation to everything she saw and heard.

In Canada Betty would have been considered very green. In Scotland she was regarded as a truthful, simple-hearted girl. A few weeks after the baby was born, some ladies called to see Mrs. --. The weather was very warm, and one of them requested the neat black-eyed girl in waiting to fetch her a gla.s.s of water. Betty obeyed with a smiling face; but oh, horror of horrors, she brought the clear crystal to the lady guest in her red fist.

The lady smiled, drank the water, and returned the tumbler to the black-eyed Hebe, who received it with a profound curtsy.

When the visitors were gone, Mrs. --, who was very fond of her young clanswoman, called her to her side, and said, "Betty, let me never see you bring anything into my room in your bare hands. Always put what you are asked for on to a waiter or an ashat."

The girl promised obedience.

The very next day some strange ladies called; and after congratulating Mrs. -- on her speedy recovery, they expressed an earnest wish to see the "_dear little baby_."

Mrs. -- rang the bell. Betty appeared. "Is the baby awake?"

"Yes, my leddy."

"Just bring him in to show these ladies."

Betty darted into the nursery, only too proud of the mission, and telling nurse to "mak' the young laird brau," she rushed to the kitchen, and demanded of the cook a "muckle big ashat."

"What do you want with the dish?" said the English cook.

"That's my ain business," quoth Betty, taking the enormous china platter from the cook's hand, and running back to the nursery. "Here, Mistress Norman, here is ain big enough to hand him in, at ony rate. Pray lay his wee duds smooth, an' I'll tak' him in, for I hear the bell."

"Are ye duff, la.s.s? Wud ye put the bairn on the ashat?"

"Ay, mistress tauld me to bring what she asked me for on an ashat. Sure ye wud no ha' me disobey her?"

"Na, na," said the nurse, laughing, and suspecting some odd mistake. "Ye sal ha' it yer ain way."

And she carefully laid the n.o.ble babe upon the dish, and went before to open the door that led to Mrs. --'s chamber.

Betty entered as briskly as her unwieldy burden would permit, and with glowing cheeks, and eyes glistening with honest delight, presented her human offering in the huge dish to the oldest female visitor in the room.

With a scream of surprise, followed by a perfect hurricane of laughter, the venerable dame received the precious gift from Betty's hand, and holding it towards the astonished mother, exclaimed, "Truly, my dear friend, this is a dish fit to set before a king. Our beloved sovereign would have no objection of seeing a dish so filled with royal fruit, placed at the head of his own table."