Page:Whole proceedings of Jockey and Maggy (3).pdf/12

 her the parting kiss at the black hole o' the peet stack, she rave the bottom frae my breeks, and wad gar me do't? I'm sure mither, I cou'd ne'er get her wi' bairn and my breeks on.

Mith. Na, na, poor simple silly lad, the weans no your's, ilka ane loups on anither, an you'll get the wyte of a' the bystarts round about.

Up gets Maggy wi' a roar, and rives her hair, claws her back, belly an baith her sides; the weed and gut gaes thro' my flesh like lang needles, nails, or elshin irons. Wae be to the day that e'er I saw his face, I had better hae married a tinkler, or a followed the soger, as mony an honest man's dochter has done, and liv'd a het erbetter [sic] life than I do.

Up gets Jockey and runs o'er the rigs for John Roger's wife, auld Katie the howdie, but or he wan back, she parted wi' Patrick through perfect spite, then lay twafold o'er a stool in a swoon.

Jock. A well, a well sirs, since my first born is e'en dead, without seeing the light o' the warld; ye's a' get bread and cheese to the blyth-meat, the thing we shou'd a war d on the banquet will sair the burial, and that will ay be some advantage? Gin Maggay tho' die I maun e'en tak Jenny; the tane is as far a length as the tither; I'se be furnisht 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 tattlin thro the town, every auld wife teld anither o't, and a' the light hippet hizies that rins between towns at e'en, turning at their tow rocks, spread it round the kintry; and every bodies mouth was filled wi, Jockey and Jenney, and how Maggy had parted wi bairn.

At last Mess John Hill hears of the horrid action and sends the elder of that quarter and Clinkum Bell the grave maker, to summon Jockey and Jenney to the session, and to see how the stool of repentance wad set them; no sooner had they entered the door, but Maggy fa's a greeting and wringing her hands; Jockey's mither fell a flyting, and he himsel' a rubbing his lugs and riving his hair, saying, O gin I were but a halfell higher, I sude be a soger or it be lang: an gie me a good flail or a corn fork, I sude kill Frenchmen anow, before I gaed to face yon flyting ministers, an be set up like a warl s wonder on their cock-stool or black-stool, an wha can bide the shame, whan every body looks to them like a piece of auld canvas prickt about a body for naething, but what every body does amaist, or they be married as well as me?