PART II.
Up got Sawney in the morning, and swallowed owre sodded meat flag by flag; and aff he goes to the coals and the courting, lilting and singing like a laverock in a May morning—O to be married if this be the way.
The colliers wondered a’ to see him sae well buskit wi a pair of wally side auld-fashioned leather breeks of his father’s, and an auld creeshy hat, mair like a fryingpan than ony thing else; a lang cravat like a minister or Baillie Duff at a burial, a clean face and hands, and nae less than a gun-sleeved linen sark on him, which made his cheeks to shine like a sherney weight, and the colliers swore he was as braw as a horse gaun to a cow’s dredgy.
But Sawny came off wi his coals, whistling and whipping up the poor beasts, even as outrageous as ony ram at riding time; well might ony body see there was a storm in Sawny’s nose, light where it like; for no sooner had he selled his coals, than he left his horse to come hame wi a nibour callan, and gad keekin up the Cowgate, and through the closses, seeking auld Be-go, his guid-mither to be; then in through the fish-market, where he bought twa lang herrin, and twa baps, a pair of suter’s auld shoon, greased black and made new again, to make his feet feasible like, as he kend the lass would look at them (for his mither tell’d him the women looked ay to the mens legs or they married them, and the weel-legged loons gade ay best aff.)
So Sawny came swaggering through a the shell wives, but she was no there, going down the town below the guard he met auld Be-go just in the teeth, an she cries, Hey laddie my dow, how’s your mither honest Mary? Thank you, quo’ Sawny, she’s meat hale, aye working some—how’s a at hame, is Kate and the laddie weel?
Matty. Fu’ weel, my dow: ye’re a braw sonsy dog grown, a wallie fa’me gin I kend ye.
Come, come, quo’ Sawny, and I’ll gie ye a nossack to heat your wame, it is a cauld day, and ye’re my mither’s countrywoman.
Na, fair fa’ you, Sawny, I’ll nae refus’t; a dram’s better the day than a clap on the arse wi’ a cauld shule, sae follow me, my dow.
So awa’ she took me, quo’ Sawny, down a dark stair, to ane o’ the houses beneath the yird, where it was mirk as in a coal heugh, and they had a great fire. Sweet be wi me quo’ Sawny, for it minds me of the ill part; an a muckle pot has a little cauldron, seething kail and roasting flesh, the wife forked them out as fast us she could into coags and caps, for there came in a wheen sutor like fallows, with black thumbs and creeshy aprons, that cutted them all up in a wee time, but they never fashed with us, nor we with them; we first got a gill, and then got a het pint. A vow quoth I, Matty, is Kate gaun to get a man yet?
Matty. A man laddie, wha wad hae her? a muckle, lazy, useless jade; she can do naething but work at husband wark, card and spin, wash ladies rooms, and a gentleman’s bonny things: she canna tak a creel on her back, and apply to merchandizing as I do, to win a man’s bread.