“Didna ye than? Weel, I’m no sayin’ onything—that’s what I h’ard.”
“Ow, it’s like eneuch! She was bulliraggin’ at me nae langer ago nor thestreen; but I doobt I sent her awa’ wi’ a flech (flea) in her lug!”
“Whaten a craw had she to pluck wi’ you, no?”
“Ow fegs! ye wad hae ta’en her for a thief-catcher, and me for the thief! She wad threpe (insist) ’at I bude to hae keepit some o’ the duds ’at happit Ma’colm MacPhail the reprobat, whan first he cam to the Seaton—a puir scraichin’ brat, as reid ’s a bilet lobster. Wae’s me ’at ever he was creatit! It jist drives me horn-daft to think ’at ever he got the breast o’ me. ’At he sud sair (serve) me sae! But I s’ hae a grip o’ ’im yet, or my name’s no —what they ca’ me.”
“It’s the w’y o’ the warl’, Mistress Findlay. What cud ye expec’ o’ ane born in sin an’ broucht furth in ineequity?”—a stock phrase of Mrs Catanach’s, glancing at her profession, and embracing nearly the whole of her belief.
“It’s a true word. The mair’s the peety he sud hae hed the milk o’ an honest wuman upo’ the tap o’ that!”
“But what cud the auld runt be efter? What was her business wi’ ’t? She never did onything for the bairn.”
“Na, no she! She never had the chance, guid or ill—Ow! doobtless it wad be anent what they ca’ the eedentryfeein’ o’ ’im to the leddy o’ Gersefell. She had sent her. She micht hae waled (chosen) a mair welcome messenger, an’ sent her a better eeran! But she made little o’ me.”
“Ye had naething o’ the kin’, I s’ wad.”
“Never a threid. There was a twal-hunner shift upo’ the bairn, rowt roon ’im like deid-claes:—gien ’t had been but the Lord’s wull! It gart me wonner at the time, for that wasna hoo a bairn ’at had been caret for sud be cled.”