Page:Coalman's courtship to the creel-wife's daughter (10).pdf/14



14      Matty. Hute, daft laddie, the soup drink's    in your head, and gars ye think sаe, this day and yesterday is ae day: ye'll be hame in    braw time yet. Sawny. A well, a well then, good day to you, good mither: ye maun gar Kate tak me, or thief tak you' a thegither: I'll hame and tell the length it's come, and if it comes nae farther, it maun e'en stick there.

Of he goes, tacking about like a ship a-    gainst the wind, as if he would knock holes in the wa's and windows wi' his elbows; he    looked as fierce as a lion, with a red face like a trumpeter, and his nose was like a bubbly jock's neb, as blue as a blawart: but or he wan half way hame his head turned heavier than his heels and mony a filthy fa' he got, through thick and thin he plashed, till hame he gets at last, grunting and gaping by the wall, when auld Mary thought it was their nibours sow, he was sae bedaubed wi' dirt; by the time she got him to bed, he was in a boiling-bar- rel fever, and poor Mary grat wi' grief.

Sawny. Hech, hey! but courting be a    curst wark, and costly too: an marriage be as     mortifying and murdering, the deil may be     married for me.

Mither. Wa Sawny, man, what's come o'er thee now? thou hast gotten skaith, some