Mith. Ye silly sumph, and senseless fellow, had ye been knuckle deep wi’ the nasty drab, ye might hae said sae, but ye tell’t me langsyne that ye couldna lo’e her, she was sae lazy and lown like, besides her crooket fit and bowed legs.
Jock. Ay, but mither, do ye mind since ye sent me out to gie her the parting kiss at the black hole of the peat-stack; she rave the button frae my breeks, and wad gar me do’t; and could flesh and blood refuse to do’t; I’m sure mither, I could ne’er get her wi’ bairn wi’ my breeks on.
Mith. Na, na, poor simple silly lad; the wean’s no yours, ilka ane loups on o’ anither, and ye’ll get the wyte of a’ the bytarts that are round about the country.
Up gets Maggy wi’ a roar, and rives her hair, and cries, O her back! her belly! and baith her sides! The weed and gut gaes through my flesh like 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 an honest man’s dochter has done, and lived a better life than I do.
Up gets Jockey, and rins over the rigs for John Rodger’s wife, auld Katty and howdy; but or he wan back, she parted wi’ Patrick through perfect spite, and then lay twa-fauld o’er a stood in a swoon.
Jock. A-weel, a-weel, sirs, though my first-born is e’en dead without seeing the light of the warld, ye’s a’ get bread and cheese to the blythe-meat, the thing we should a waured on the bauket will sair the burial, and that will aye be some advantage; and should Maggy die, I maun een tak Jenny, the taen 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-tattlin through the town, every auld wife tell’d anither o’t, and a’ the light-hippet hissies that rins between towns at e’en tugging at their tow rocks, spread it round the kintry, and every body’s mouth was filled wi’ Jockey and Jenny and how Maggy had parted with 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 and Jenny, 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 himself a-rubbing his lugs, and riving his hair, crying out, O gin I were but half an ell higher, I sud be a sodger or it be lang; and gie me a good flail or a corn fork, I sud kill Frenchmen anew, before I gade to face yen flyting Ministers, and be set up like a warld’s wonder, on their cock-stool, or black stool; and wha can hide the shame when every body looks to them, wi’ their sacken sarks, or gowns, on them, like a piece of auld canvas prickt about a body, for naething but what every body does amaist or they are married; as well as me.
Mith. My man, Johnnie, ye’re no the first that has done it, and ye’ll no be the last; e’en mony of the ministers hae done it themselves; hout aye, e’en your father and I did it mony a time.
Mag. Aye, aye, and that gars your son be so good o’t as he is; the thing that’s bred in the flesh, is ill to pit out of the bane.