Page:John Falkirk's cariches (1).pdf/21



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Yet these are they, the fickle farmer fixes his fancy upon; a bundle of clouts, a skeleton of bones; Maggy and the mutch, like twa fir sticks an' a pickle. tow, neither for his palate nor his pow; very unproper plenishing, neither for his profit nor her pleasure, to plout her hands thro' Hawkey's caff cog, is a hateful hardship for mammy's pet, and will hack a' her hands. All this I have seen and hard, and been witness to, but my pen being a goose-quill, cannot expose their names nor place of abode, but warns the working men out of their way. Secondly. I see another sort, who can work, and maun work, till they be married, and become mistress themselves; but when they get husbands, all their thrift leaves them. Before that, they wrought as for a wager, they span as for a premium, busked as for a brag, scour'd their din skins as a wauker does worsted Blankets, kept as mim in the mouth as a minister's wife, comely as Diana chaste as Susanna, yet the whole of their toil is the trimming of their rigging, tho' their hulls be everlastingly in a leaking condition; their backs and their bellies are box'd about with the fins of a big fish, six peticoats, a gown and apron, besides a side sark down to the ancle-bones: ah!