Page:Coalman's courtship to a creelwife's daughter (1).pdf/15

 Sawny. A well, a well, then, good day to you good mither, ye maun gar Kate tak me, or thief tak you a' the gither; I'll hame and tell the length it's come; an' it come nae farther, it maun e'en stick there.

Off he goes, tacking about like a ship against the wind, as if he would knock holes in the wa's and windows wi' his elbows: he looked as fierce as lioulion [sic], wi' red face like a trumpeter, and his nose was like a bublie-cocks nib, as blue as  a blawirt; but, or he wan half-way hame, his he'd turned heavier nur his heels, and many a filthy fa' he got; through thick and thin he plash'd, till hame he gets, at last, grunting and graping by the wa's, that auld Mary his mither thought it was their neighbour's sow, he was so bedaubed wi' dirt. She gets him to bed at last, but he was in a boiling barrel fever, and poor Mary grat wi' grief.

Sawny. Hech hey! co' Sawny, but courting be a curst wark, an' costly; an' marriage be as mortifying and murdering, a' body may be married for me.

Mith. Wa Sawny man, what's come o'er thee now? Thou's gotten skaith, some auld wife has witcht thee, or the very deel has dung thee o'er in some dirty midden! My bairn's elf-shot!——Whar has thou been, or what has thou seen? Thy een reels like a