Jock. Ay but mither, do ye mind since ye sent me out to gie her the parting kiss, at the black hole o’ the peet stack; she rave the button frae my breeks, and wad gar me do’t; and bad me do’t, and cou’d flesh and blood refuse to do’t; I’m sure mither, I cou’d ne’er get her wi’ bairn an my breeks on.
Mith. Na, na, poor simple silly lad, the wean’s no yours, ilk ane loups on of anither, and you’ll get the wyte o’ a bytarts round about.
Up gets Maggy wi’ a rore, and rives her hair, cries her back, belly, and baith her sides; the weed and gut gaes thro’ my flesh like lang needles, nails or elshin irons. Wae be ti’ the day that e’er I saw his face, I had better married a tinkler, or a followed the sogers, as mony an honest man’s dochter has done, and liv’d a better life than I do.
Up gets Jockey and rins o’er the rigs, for John Roger’s wife, auld Katty the howdy, but or he wan back she parted wi’ patrick thro’ perfect spite, and then lay twa fauld o’er a stool in a swoon.
Jock. A well, a well, sirs, since my first born is dead without seeing the light o’ the warld; ye’s a get bread an cheese to the blyth meat, the thing we shou’d a war’d on the banket will sair the burial, and that will ay be some advantage: an Maggy should die, I maun een tak Jenny, the tane is as far a length as the tither: I’se be furnisht wi’ a wife between the twa.
But Maggy turn’d better the next day, and was able to muck the byre; yet there gead sic a tittle tattling thro’ the town every auld wife tell’t anither o’t, and a’ the light hippet hussies that rins between towns at een, 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 wi’ bairn.
At last Mess John Hill hears of the horrid action, and sends the elder of that quarter and Clinkem Bell[5] the grave maker, to summon Jockey and Jenny to the session, and to see how the stool of repentance wad set them,[6] no sooner had they entered the door but Maggy fa’s a greeting, and wringing her hands; Jockey’s mither fell a fliting, and he himself a rubbing his lugs, and riving his hair, saying, O gin I were but a half ell higher, I sud be a soger or it be lang, and gie me a good flail or a corn fork, I sud kill Frenchman enew, before I gaed to face yon flyting ministers, an be set up like a warlds wonder, on their cock-stool or black stool[7] an wha can bide the shame, whan every body looks to them, wi’ their sacken sarks or gowns on them,[8] like a piece of an auld canvass prickt about a body, for naething, but what every body does amaist, or they be married as well as me.
Mith. My man Johny, ye’re no the first that has done it, an ye’ll no be the last; een mony o’ the ministers has done it themselves, hout ay, your father and I did it mony a time.
Mag. Ay, ay, and that gars your son be so good o’t as he is: the thing that is bred in the flesh is ill to pit out o’ the bane.
Mith. Daft woman what way could the warld stand, if fouks wadna make use o’ ither, it’s the thing that’s natural, bairns getting, therefore it’s no to be scunnert at.