The Laird had got on his high horse and was
prancing and capering beyond all the controul of his honest friend,
whilst Mr. Salmon, no doubt, laughed in his sleeve, and only lamented
that he had not known Dymock better from the first, for in that case he
would have used his cunning to have obtained a better bargain of the
castle and lands. It was not one nor two visits to Hexham which
completed these arrangements; however Mr. Dymock, after the first
visit, no longer refused to permit Shanty to open out every thing to his
aunt, and to prepare her to descend into a cottage, on an income of
forty or fifty pounds a year.
Mrs. Margaret bore the information better than Shanty had expected; she
had long anticipated some such blow, and her piety enabled her to bear
it with cheerfulness. "I now," she said, "know the worst, and I see not
wherefore, though I am a Dymock, I should not be happy in a cottage, I
am only sorry for Tamar; poor Tamar! what will become of her?"
"Oh mother! dear mother!" said Tamar weeping, "why are you sorry for me,
cannot I go with you? surely you would not part from me;" and she fell
weeping on Mrs. Margaret's bosom.
"Never before! oh, never before," cried Mrs. Margaret, "did I feel my
poverty as I do now.
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