Scotland/Scots > Reminiscences of a Highland parish

196
A HIGHLAND PARISH.
tenant, with a number of beeves and sheep. He
was a thrifty money-making bachelor, who never
gave or accepted bills for man or for beast, but
was contented with small profits and ready cash,
secured at once and hoarded in safety with Car-
rick, Brown, & Company’s Ship Bank, Glasgow,
there to grow at interest while he was sleeping—
though he was generally “wide-awake.” He was
a cousin of Mary’s “thrice removed,” but close
enough to entitle him to a hearing when he came
to court her; and on this very errand he arrived
one day at the manse, where — alas! for poor
Donald Maclean—he was, as a matter of course,
hospitably received.
Duncan had seen Mary but once, but having
made up his mind as to her fair appearance, which
it was not difficult for him to do, and having-
ascertained from others that she was in every re¬
spect a properly-conducted girl, and a most accom¬
plished servant, who could work in the field or
dairy, in the kitchen or laundry.—and that beside
the fire at night her hands were the most active
in knitting, sewing, carding wool, or spinning—he
concluded that she was the very wife for Duncan