Page:Whole proceedings of Jockey and Maggy's courtship.pdf/18

 lang needles, nails or elshin irons! Wae be to the day that e'er I saw his face, I had better married a tinkler, or followed the sodgers as' mony a honest man's dochter has done, an liv'd a better life than I do.

Up gets Jockey, and rins o'er the riggs for John Roger's wife, auld Ketty the howdy, but or he wan back she parted wi' Patrick thro' perfect spite, and then lay twa-fauld o'er a stool in a swoon.

Jock. A-well, a-well firs, tho' my first-born is e'en dead without seeing the light of the warld, ye's a' get bread and cheese to the blythemeat, the thing we should a war'd on the blanket will fair the burial, and that will aye be some advantage; and Maggy should die, I maun e'en tak Jenny the tane is as far a length as the tither; I'se be furnished wi' a wife between the twa.

But Maggy grew better the next day, and was able to muck the byre; yet there gaed sic a tittle-tatlin thro' the town, every auld wife tell'd anither o't awa' the light-hippet hissies that rins between towns at e'en, tugging at their towrocks, spread it round the kintry, and every body's mouth was filled wi' Jockey and Jenny, an how Maggy had parted wi bairn

At last Mess John Hill hears of the foul fact, and sends the Elder of that quarter, and Clinkum Bell, the grave maker, to summon Jockey