Page:Coalman's courtship to the creel-wife's daughter (9).pdf/13

 the deil or the doctors, or else married and working at the wanton trade o weans making.

Matty. Hute, daft laddie, the soup drink s in your head, and gars ye think sae, this and yesterday is a' 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 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.

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 a lion with a red face like a trumpeter, and his nose was like a bubbly jock's neb, as bluw 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-barrel fever, and poor Mary grat wi grief.

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