“So much for the ducks,” said I; “and now for the hens and cocks; was there no pensioner among them?”
“No,” cried Barbara, “but there was the ‘corporal.’ ”
“Any mark beyond the coat?” inquired I.
“Ay,” cried Peggy, “he was stone-blind in the right eye; he lost his sight in a battle with Mr Grant’s cock, and never recovered his eyesight again. When toying with his wives, he turned aye round to the left side.”
“Yes,” struck in Betty; “before his misfortune, he was the king of a’ the cocks in the Meadows.”
“Is that the blind ‘corporal?’ ” said I.
“The very creature,” cried Barbara, as she examined the white orb of the animal which I had detected in the morning; “but oh,” she added, “I am vexed to see him in that condition!”
And really I thought I could see some little humidity about the blue eye of the good-natured girl.
“That’s the lass for a man,” thought I. “Give me a qualm of pity in a woman even for a bird, and I tell you you may make sure of a good wife.”
I once knew—permit me to go off the scene a little—a young woman who lived in Great King Street. She was a great belle, and admired for a kind of beauty not uncommon among our servants. A gentleman in town, whose name I could mention, saw her one day, as she was carrying home some books from the library in Dundas Street. He was smitten—followed her—spoke to her—and entertained the idea of making her his wife, whereby she would have become a lady. Time passed; and, in the meantime, he was informed that the pretty Margaret one night, when in the bed-room flat of the house, pitched the cat, which had offended her in her cleanly notions, out of the window. It was a bitter cold night, and the frost was intense. In the morning the cat was found spiked on the railing, and frozen stiff. This was enough for our lover, and he forsook her. She afterwards fell, became a street-walker, and died neglected and uncared for in the Infirmary. I suspect the little pearl in Barbara’s eye for the blind corporal was worth all the beauty in the face and person of the once admired but forsaken Margaret.