“Your waiting isna over, Cluny. Indeed no! I’m not thinking o’ marriage, nor o’ anything like it. I canna think o’ it. Mither isna fit for any hard wark, even the making o’ a bed is mair than she ought to do. I’m not thinking o’ marriage. Not I!”
“It is time you were. Maist o’ our girls marry when they are nineteen years auld.”
“I’m not nineteen yet. I don’t want to marry. I hae my wark and my duty right here, i’ this house—wark that God has set me, and I’ll not desert it for wark I set mysel’, to please mysel’.”
“That’s the way wi’ women. They bring up God and their duty to screen their neglect o’ duty. Hae ye nae duty towards me?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Will you let a lad gie ye his life-lang love, and feel nae duty anent it?”
“I dinna ask you for your love. I hae told you, mair than once, that I dinna want any man’s love.”
“Tuts! That is out o’ all nature and custom. Ye be to marry some man.”
“I havna seen the man yet.”
“I’m thinking it will be Angus Ballister. I’ll mak’ him black and blue from head to foot, if he comes near Culraine again.”