Page:John Falkirk's cariches (4).pdf/21

 21

Yet these are they, the fickle farmer fixes his fancy upon ; a bundle of clouts, a skelton 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 the I have seen and heard, and been witness to, but my pen being a goose quill, cannot expose their names nor place of abode, but warns the work- ing men out of their way. 2d I see another sort, who can work and' maun work till they be mar- ried, 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, brisked 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, yet the whole of their toil is the trimming of their rigging, tho’ their hulls be everlastingly in a leaking con- dition ; their backs and their belhes are box’d about with the fins of a big fish, six petticoats a gown and apron, besides a s:de sark down to the ancle-bones : ah !