She laid her hand on his arm, and shook her head with a pleasant smile. She was regarding with pride and satisfaction her brother's fine figure, admirably shown in the elastic grace of his blue Guernsey. She turned the collar low enough to leave his round throat a little bare, and put his blue flannel Tam o' Shanter over his close, clustering curls. "Go as you are," she said. "In that dress you feel at home, and at ease, and you look ten times the man you do in your broadcloth. And if Sophy cannot like her fisher-lad in his fisher-dress, she isn't worthy of him."
He was much pleased with this advice, for it precisely sorted with his own feelings; and he stooped and kissed Christina, and she sent him away with a smile and a good wish. Then she went to her mother, who was in a little shed salting some fish. "Mother," she cried, "Andrew has gone to Largo."
"Like enough. It would be stranger, if he had stopped at home."
"He has gone to ask Sophy to marry him next week--next Monday."
"Perfect nonsense! We'll have no such marrying in a hurry, and a corner. It will take a full month to marry Andrew Binnie. What would all our folks say, far and near, if they were not bid to the wedding? Set to that, you have to be married first. Marrying isn't like Christmas, coming every year of our Lord; and we be to make the most of it. I'll not give my consent to any such like hasty work. Why, they are not even 'called' in the kirk yet."
"Andrew can get a licence."
"Andrew can get a fiddle-stick! None of the Binnies were ever married, but by word of the kirk, and none of them shall be, if I can help it. Licence indeed! Buying the right to marry for a few shillings, and the next thing will be a few more shillings for the right to un-marry. I'll not hear tell of such a way."
"But, Mother, if Andrew does not get Sophy at once, he may lose her altogether."
"Humph! No great loss."
"The biggest loss in the world that Andrew can have. Things are come to a pass. If Andrew does not marry her at once, I am feared Braelands will carry her off."
"He is welcome to her."
"No, no, Mother! Do you want Braelands to get the best of Andrew?"
"The like of him get the best of Andrew! I'll not believe it. Sophy isn't beyond all sense of right and feeling. If, after all these years, she left Andrew for that fine gentleman, she would be a very Jael of deceit and treachery. I wish I had told her about her mother's second cousin, bonnie Lizzie Lauder."