The minister looks at him and says, Hute, tute, Saunders, lay down four pund and a groat, and come back the morn to the stool, and give satisfaction to the congregation; you had more need to be seeking repentance for that abominable sin of uncleanness than speaking so to me.
San.—Well, here’s your siller, sir, I hae gotten but poor penny-worths for’t, an’ ye tell me to repent for’t; what, the auld thief, needs I repent! when I’m gaun to marry the woman, an’ then I’ll hae to do’t o’er again every day, or there’ll be nae peace in the house; figs, it’s nonsense to pay siller, repent, and do’t again, too: a fine advice, indeed, master minister! and that’s the way the like o’ you live.
Now, sir, says Wise Willie, ye manna put them on the black creepy till they be married; they’ve suffered enough at ae time.
A-weel, a-weel, said they, but they must marry very soon.
I, true, says Sandy, ye’ll be wanting mair clink; foul haet ye do for naething here.
The next exploit was an action at law against the goodman of Muiredge, a farmer, who lived near by, that kept sheep and swine. His sheep came down and broke their yards, and ate up their kail. The wild hares they thought belonged to the man, as they ran to his house when they were hunted. The swine came very often in about their houses, seeking fish guts, and ony thing they could get. So it happened, when one of the children was sitting easing itself, that one of the swine tumbled it over, and bit a piece out of its backside! The whole town rose in an uproar against poor grunkie, as they called her, and takes her before Wise Willie. Willie took an axe and cut two or three inches off her long nose. Now, says Willie, I trow I hae made thee something like anither beast: thou had sic a lang mouth before, it wad a frighted a very deil to look at ye; but now your fac’d like a little horse or cow. The poor sow ran home roaring, all blood, and wanting the nose; which caused Muiredge to warn them in before my Lord. So the wives that had their kail eaten appeared first in the court, complaining against Muiredge. Indeed, my Lord, said they, Muiredge is no a good man, when he is sic an ill neighbour. He keeps black hares an’ white hares, little wee brown-backed hares wi’ white arses, and loose waggin horns; they creep in at our gush-holes, an’ does the like; when we cry, pussie, pussie, they rin hame to Muiredge: but I’ll gar my colly had them by the foot, an’ I’ll had them by the horn, an’ pull the hair aff them, and send ’em hame wanting the skin, as he did Sowen Tammie’s wee Sandy, for codin o’ his pease, he took aff the poor laddie’s coat, and sae did he e’en. And Willie said, if ye were a sow, my Lord, and me sitting driting, and you to bite my arse, sudna I hae amends o’ you for that? Odd, my Lord, ye wadna hae a bit out o’ your arse for twinty marks. Ye maun e’en gar Muiredge gie ten marks to buy a plaster to heal the poor bit wean’s arse again.
Well said, Willie, says my Lord; but who put on the sow’s nose again.
A, fegs, my Lord, said Willie, she’s honester like wantin’t, an’ she’ll bite nae mair arses wi’t. An ye had hane a nose, my Lord, as lang as the sow, ye’d been obliged to ony body it wad cut a piece aft.
A gentleman coming past near their town, asked one of their wives where their college stood? Said she, gie me a shilling an’ I’ll let you see baith sides o’t. He gives her the shilling, thinking to see something curious. Now, says she, there’s the one side of your shilling, and there’s the other; so it is mine now.