But there is a sorrow which knows neither hunger nor thirst; and poor
Flora'--He paused, and the whole company sympathized in his emotion.
The Baron's thoughts naturally reverted to the unprotected state of
his daughter, and the big tear came to the veteran's eye. 'If I fall,
Macwheeble; you have all my papers, and know all my affairs; be just to
Rose.'
The Bailie was a man of earthly mould, after all; a good deal of dirt
and dress about him, undoubtedly, but some kindly and just feelings he
had, especially where the Baron or his young mistress were concerned. He
set up a lamentable howl. 'If that doleful day should come, while Duncan
Macwheeble had a boddle, it should be Miss Rose's. He wald scroll for
a plack the sheet, or she kenn'd what it was to want; if indeed
a' the bonnie baronie o' Bradwardine and Tully-Veolan, with the
fortalice and manor-place thereof (he kept sobbing and whining
at every pause), tofts, crofts, mosses, muirs--outfield,
infield--buildings--orchards--dovecots--with the right of net and
coble in the water and loch of Veolan--teinds, parsonage and
vicarage--annexis, connexis--rights of pasturage--fuel, feal, and
divot--parts, pendicles, and pertinents whatsoever--(here he had
recourse to the end of his long cravat to wipe his eyes, which
overflowed in spite of him, at the ideas which this technical jargon
conjured up)--all as more fully described in the proper evidents and
titles thereof--and lying within the parish of Bradwardine, and the
shire of Perth--if, as aforesaid, they must a' pass from my master's
child to Inch-Grabbit, wha's a Whig and a Hanoverian, and be managed
by his doer, Jamie Howie, wha's no fit to be a birlieman, let be a
bailie'--
The beginning of this lamentation really had something affecting, but
the conclusion rendered laughter irresistible.
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