“There’s truth in what she says, Bob--we are a couple of lazy dogs.”
“I was not just made,” said Robbie, who was less good-humoured than his friend, “to hew wood and to draw water in my own house.”
“It would be an honour and a credit to you to do something, Mr Robert,” said Janet, with a touch of sternness. “Eh, laddie! the thing that’s maist unbecoming in this world is to eat somebody’s bread and do nothing for it--no even in the way of civeelity--for here’s the mistress put out of everything. She has no peace by night or by day. Do you think she is sleepin’, with you making a’ that fracaw coming in in the middle of the nicht, and your muckle voices and your muckle steps just making a babel o’ the house? She’s no more sleepin’ than I am: and my opinion is that she never sleeps--just lies and ponders and ponders, and thinks what’s to become of ye. Eh, Mr Robert, if you canna exerceese your ain business, whatever it may be----”
Then there was a big laugh from both of the young men. “We have not got our tools with us, Janet,” said the stranger.
“I’m no one that holds very much with tools, Mr Lewis,” said Janet. “Losh! I would take up just the first thing that came, and try if I couldna do a day’s work with that, if it were me.”
Mr Lewis was what the household had taken to calling the visitor. He had never been credited with any name, and Robert spoke to him as Lew. It was Janet who had first changed this into Mr Lewis. Whether it was his surname or his Christian name nobody inquired, nor did he give any information, but answered to Mr Lewis quite pleasantly, as indeed he did everything. He was, as a matter of fact, far more agreeable in the house than Robbie, who, quiet enough before he came, was now disposed to be somewhat imperious and exacting, and show that he was master. The old servants, it need scarcely be said, were much aggrieved by this. “He would just like to be cock o’ the walk, our Robbie,” Andrew said.
“And if he is, it’s his ain mother’s house, and he has the best right,” said Janet, not disposed to have Robert objected to by any one but herself. “He was aye one that likit his ain way,” she added on her own account.
“That’s the worst o’ weemen wi’ sons,” said Andrew; “they’re spoilt and pettit till they canna tell if they’re on their heels or their head.”