“Aweel, aweel,” says Doig. “But ye’ll can leave your horse here and your bags, for it seems we’re to have your up-put.”
“Na, na”, said I. “Tamson’s mear [[17]] would never be the thing for me this day of all days.”
Doig speaking somewhat broad, I had been led by imitation into an accent much more countrified than I was usually careful to affect a good deal broader, indeed, than I have written it down; and I was the more ashamed when another voice joined in behind me with a scrap of a ballad:
“Gae saddle me the bonny black,
Gae saddle sune and mak’ him ready
For I will down the Gatehope-slack,
And a’ to see my bonny leddy.”
The young lady, when I turned to her, stood in a morning gown, and her hands muffled in the same, as if to hold me at a distance. Yet I could not but think there was kindness in the eye with which she saw me.
“My best respects to you, Mistress Grant,” said I, bowing.
“The like to yourself, Mr. David,” she replied with a deep courtesy. “And I beg to remind you of an old musty saw, that meat and mass never hindered man. The mass I cannot afford you, for we are all good Protestants. But the meat I press on your attention. And I would not wonder but I could find something for your private ear that would be worth the stopping for.”
“Mistress Grant,” said I, “I believe I am already your debtor for some merry words—and I think they were kind too—on a piece of unsigned paper.”
“Unsigned paper?” says she, and made a droll face, which was likewise wondrous beautiful, as of one trying to remember.
“Or else I am the more deceived,” I went on. “But to be sure, we shall have the time to speak of these, since your father is so good as to make me for a while your inmate; and the gomeral begs you at this time only for the favour of his liberty.”