Moth. Awa, awa, ye witless widdyfu’, comparing a beast till a woman’s ain bairnie: a dog is a brute beast, an’ a wean is a chrisen’d creature.
Jock. Na mither, its no a chrisen’d creature yet, for hit has neither gotten the words nor the water, nor as little do I ken how to ca’t yet.
Mar. I wat well it’s a very uncanny thing to keep about a house, or yet t’ meet in a morning, a body wanting a name.[19]
Moth. Hout tout ay, ye it’s auld wives is ay fu o’ frits an’ religious fashions, them that looks to frits, frits follows them, but it is six and thirty years since I was a married wife, an’ I never kend a sabbath day by a nither ane, mony a time till the bell rang.
Mar. Dear guidwife what needs ye speak so loud? ye fright the wean wi’ crying sae, see as it starts.
Moth. Ay, ay, the bystarts is a’ that way, but ken ye the reason o’ that?
Mar. Ye that kens the reason of everything may soon find out that too.
Moth. A deed than woman I’ll tell you, the merry begotten weans, its bystarts I mean, is red wood, half wittet hillocket sort o’ creatures: for an it be nae ane among twenty o’ them, they’re a’ scar’d o’ the getting, for there’s few o’ them gotten in beds like honest fouk’s bairns; but in out-houses, auld barns, backs o’ dikes, and kil-loggies; whar there’s ay somebody wandering to scar poor needfu’ persons, at their job of journay-wark: for weel ken I the gaits o’t, experience gars me speak.
Jock. A deed mither that’s very true, for whan I was getting that wean at the black hole o’ the peat stack, John Gammel’s muckle Colly came in behind us wi’ a bow wow, of a great goul just abune my buttocks; an’ as I’m a sinner, he gart me loup laveruck height, an’ yet wi got a wean for a’ that.
Moth. A weel than Johnny that mak’s my words good yet.