The Twa Miss Dawsons

Saughleas was not a large estate, nor were the Dawsons gentlefolks, in the sense generally accepted in the countryside.


It was acknowledged that both the mother and the wife of the new laird had had good blood in their veins; but George Dawson himself, had been, and, in a sense, still was, a merchant in the High-street of Portie. He was banker and ship-owner as well, and valued the reputation which he had acquired as a business man, far more than he would ever be likely to value any honour paid to him as the Laird of Saughleas.


He had gotten his land honestly, as he had gotten all else that he possessed. He had taken no advantage of the necessities of the last owner, who had been in his power, in a certain sense, but had paid him the full value of the place; and not a landed proprietor among them all had more pride in the name and fame of his ancestry, than he had in the feet that he had been the maker of his own fortune, and that no man, speaking truth, could accuse him, in the making of it, of doing a single mean or dishonest deed.


His mother “had come o’ gentle bluid,” but his father had been first a common sailor and then the mate of a whaling ship that sailed many a time from the little Scottish east coast harbour of Portie, and which at last sailed away never more to return.