“How sude I ken ony thing about that, gudeman?—ye may gang an’ speer at her—Out o’ her bed, quotha!—Na—there’ll nae young skempy amang them wile her out o’ her bed i’the night–time.—Dear gudeman, what has put it i’your head that our bairn stravaigs i’the night–time?”
“Na, na, Maron, there’s nae mortal soul will ever gar ye answer to the point.”
“Dear gudeman, wha heard ever tell o’ a mortal soul?—the soul’s no mortal at a’—Didna ye hear our ain worthy curate–clerk say”——
“O, Maron! Maron! ye’ll aye be the auld woman, if the warld sude turn upside–down!—Canna ye answer my question simply, ay or no, as far as ye ken, whether our daughter has been out o’ her bed at midnight for some nights bygane or no?—If ye ken that she has, canna ye tell me sae at aince, without ganging about the bush? it’s a thing that deeply concerns us baith.”
“Troth, gudeman, gin she hae been out o’ her bed, mony a honest man’s bairn has been out o’ her bed at midnight afore her, an’ nae ill in her mind nouther—the thing’s as common as the rising o’ the se’en sterns.”
Walter turned round towards his meal, after casting a look of pity and despair upon his yokefellow, who went on at great length defending the equivocal practice of young women who might deem it meet and convenient to leave their beds occasionally by night; for that, without some mode of private wooing, it was well known that no man in the country could possibly procure a wife, for that darkness rendered a promise serious, which passed in open day for a mere joke, or words of course; and at length Maron Linton, with more sagacity than usual, concluded her arguments with the following home remark:—“Ye ken fu’ weel, gudeman, ye courtit me i’the howe o’ the night yoursel; an’ Him that kens the heart kens weel that I hae never had cause to rue our bits o’ trysts i’the dark—Na, na! mony’s the time an’ aft that I hae blest them, an’ thought o’ them wi’ pleasure! We had ae kind o’ happiness then, Watie, we hae another now, an’ we’ll hae another yet.”
There was something in this appeal that it would have been unnatural to have resisted. There is a tenderness in the recollection of early scenes of mutual joy and love, that invariably softens the asperity of our nature, and draws the heart by an invisible bond toward the sharer of these; but when they are at one view connected with the present and the future, the delight receives a tinge of sublimity. In short, the appeal was one of the most happy that ever fell from the lips of a simple and ignorant, though a well–meaning woman. It was not lost upon Walter; who, though of a rough exterior and impatient humour, was a good man. He took his wife’s hand and squeezed it, while the pupil of his eye expanded like that of a huge mountain ram, when he turns it away from the last ray of the setting sun.
“My gude auld wife,” said he, “God bless ye!—Ye hae bits o’ queer gates whiles, but I wadna part wi’ ye, or see ane o’ yer grey hairs wranged, for a’ the ewes on the Hermon Law.”—Maron gave two or three sobs, and put the corner of her check–apron upon the eye that was next Walter.—“Fair fa’ your heart, Maron,” said he, “we’ll say nae mair about it; but, my woman, we maun crack about our bits o’ hame affairs, an’ I had the strongest reasons for coming to the truth o’ yon; however, I’ll try ither means.—But, Maron Linton, there’s anither thing, that in spite o’ my heart is like to breed me muckle grief, an’ trouble, an’ shame.—Maron, has the Brownie o’ Bodsbeck been ony mair seen about the town?”
“Troth, gudeman, ye’re aye sae hard i’ the belief—wi’ a’ your kindness to me and mine, ye hae a dour, stiff, unbowsome kind o’ nature in ye—it’ll hardly souple whan steepit i’ yer ain e’esight—but I can tell ye for news, ye’ll no hae a servant about yer house, man, woman, nor boy, in less than a fortnight, if this wicked and malevolent spirit canna be put away—an’ I may say i’ the language o’ Scripture, ‘My name is Legion, for we are many.’ It’s no ae Brownie, nor twa, nor half–a–score, that’s about the house, but a great hantle—they say they’re ha’f deils ha’f fock—a thing that I dinna weel understand. But how many bannocks think ye I hae baken in our house these eight days, an’ no a crust o’ them to the fore but that wee bit on your trencher?”