“And, pray, what may be your rank in this wonderful army?” asked Lady Florimel, with the air and tone of one humouring a lunatic.
“I’m naething but a raw recruit, my leddy; but gien I hed my chice, I wad be piper to my reg’ment.”
“How do you mean?”
“I wad mak sangs. Dinna lauch at me, my leddy, for they’re the best kin’ o’ wapon for the wark ’at I ken. But I’m no a makar (poet), an’ maun content mysel’ wi’ duin’ my wark.”
“Then why,” said Lady Florimel, with the conscious right of social superiority to administer good counsel,—“why don’t you work harder, and get a better house, and wear better clothes?”
Malcolm’s mind was so full of far other and weightier things that the question bewildered him; but he grappled with the reference to his clothes.
“’Deed, my leddy,” he returned, “ye may weel say that, seein’ ye was never aboord a herrin’ boat! but gien ye ance saw the inside o’ ane fu’ o’ fish, whaur a body gangs slidderin’ aboot, maybe up to the middle o’ ’s leg in wamlin’ herrin’, an’ the neist meenute, maybe, weet to the skin wi’ the splash o’ a muckle jaw (wave), ye micht think the claes guid eneuch for the wark—though ill fit, I confess wi’ shame, to come afore yer leddyship.”
“I thought you only fished about close by the shore in a little boat; I didn’t know you went with the rest of the fishermen: that’s very dangerous work—isn’t it?”
“No ower dangerous my leddy. There’s some gangs doon ilka sizzon; but it’s a’ i’ the w’y o’ yer wark.”
“Then how is it you’re not gone fishing to-night?”