Page:Old maid and widow, or, The widow the best wife.pdf/14

Rh E’en this to Watty was denied—

Instead of aught by love supplied,

’Bout this an’ that, she nightly gieved him,

An’ wi’ her curtain-lectures deaved him:

Syne, when her tongue to silence fley’d him,

Turned round her back, an’ snored beside him.

An’ when he waukened in the mornin’,

Her first salute was jeers an’ scornin’;

Tho’ Watty ill deserved sic mockin’,

She jamphed him wi’ the cradle rockin’;

An’ muckle mair he had nae wyte of,

The runkled carlin’ took delight of.

She didna think that ane was douse,

Of a’ her sex about the house;

An’ a’ she kept of woman kind,

Were cripple, gley’d, or haflins blind;

If Watty spake to ane or ither,

She gart him dree a waefu’ dridder;

At hay or har’st, she aye was seen

Close at his heels frae morn till e’en,

Till a’ the cummers i’ the clachan,

Were like to split their sides wi’ laughin’.

If Watty looked at female kind,

It waukened tantrums in her mind;

He cou’dna welcome in a stranger,

But Kate aye thought his heart in danger;