O whistle, and I’ll come to you, my lad....
[Burns whistles the rest of the tune through, and Nell is with him again.]
Nell: That black-coated, lean-bodied, yellow-faced gowk to scare you. Cracked metal like that to turn you off, a pretty man like you, Robin, with your kisses and your rhymes. A snivelling man, a watery-eyed man—and bawdy too, I know him. He’s bad Sabbath, a leering, lecherous, safe man—he would and he would not afore God—oh yes, I know him. And you’ll let him trip you up, spoil your stanzas—for shame, Robin.
Burns: You ran away, Nell, and left me alone against him.
Nell: Ran away—yes I ran away—no Master Sanctimony for me. Ask Annie Leslie.
Burns: I gave him no civil flattery—I can read him as well as you or Annie. But I fell to thinking afterwards.
Nell: To have done with courting.
Burns: Till I’m for wedding.
Nell: But I want no talk of weddings. Let that bide. Spring’s coming, and it’s a clear day, and here are we, and you’re a man, Robin, to make holy rags there look the famine he is.
Burns: It was a bad resolution.