Speaking pure Lowland Scots, which was a delight to listen to; full
of a gracious hospitality embracing everyone in the district from the
highest to the lowest; fiery politicians and ardent supporters of
their beloved Free Kirk, to the upkeep of which I believe they would
cheerfully have given their last copper, Miss Aitken and Miss Elspeth
were of a type now unhappily almost extinct.
Miss Elspeth was the plain, clever one. "In my youth", she loved to
quote, "in my youth I wasna what you would ca' bonnie, but I was pale,
penetratin', and interestin'."
Miss Aitken had been a beauty, and liked to tell us of the balls she
had danced at, when, dressed in white muslin with heelless slippers
and a wreath in her hair, she had been called "a sylph," Why she had
never married was a puzzle to many. I remember she used to tell us of
a wonderful visit to London, and of how she came home sick at heart
about leaving all the "ferlies," as she called them. On her first
evening at home Miss Elspeth had said, to cheer her, "Come and see the
wee pigs." "Me!" said poor Miss Aitken. "What did I care about the
wee pigs!" It was, perhaps, more than the "ferlies" she missed, but I
don't know. She was no sylph when I knew her, my dear Miss Aitken, but
she had a most comfortable lap, and a cap with cherry ribbons, and the
kindest heart in all the world. Once, John, who thirsted always for
information, and mindful of a point that had struck him in the chapter
at morning prayers, said:
"Miss Aitken, are you any relation to Achan-in-the-Camp?"
Miss Elspeth, looking quizzically at her sister, answered for her:
"Dod! Marget, I wouldna wonder but what ye micht hae been tempted by
the Babylonish garment!"
They were very old when we knew them, these dear ladies, and they
have been dead many years, but their simple, kindly lives have left
a fragrance to sweeten this workaday world even as the mignonette in
bygone summers scented their old-world garden.
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