Mony ane sings the gerss, the gerss,
And mony ane sings the corn;
And mony ane clatters o’ bold Robin Hood,
Ne’er kent where he was born.
But howsoever about Kittlerumpit: the goodman was a rambling sort of body; and he went to a fair one day, and not only never came home again, but nevermore was heard of. Some said he ‘listed, and others that the tiresome pressgang snatched him up, though he was furnished with a wife and a child to boot. Alas! that wretched pressgang! They went about the country like roaring lions, seeking whom they might devour. Well do I remember how my eldest brother Sandy was all but smothered in the meal-chest, hiding from those rascals. After they were gone, we pulled him out from among the meal, puffing and crying, and as white as any corpse. My mother had to pick the meal out of his mouth with the shank of a horn spoon.
‘Ah well, when the goodman of Kittlerumpit was gone, the goodwife was left with small means. Little resources had she, and a baby boy at her breast. All said they were sorry for her; but nobody helped her—which is a common case, sirs. Howsoever the goodwife had a sow, and that was her only consolation; for the sow was soon to farrow, and she hoped for a good litter.
‘But we all know hope is fallacious. One day the woman goes to the sty to fill the sow’s trough; and what does she find but the sow lying on her back, grunting and groaning, and ready to give up the ghost.
‘I trow this was a new pang to the goodwife’s heart; so she sat down on the knocking-stone[37], with her bairn on her knee, and cried sorer than ever she did for the loss of her own goodman.
‘Now I premise that the cottage of Kittlerumpit was built on a brae, with a large fir-wood behind it, of which you may hear more ere we go far on. So the goodwife, when she was wiping her eyes, chances to look down the brae; and what does she see but an old woman, almost like a lady, coming slowly up the road. She was dressed in green, all but a short white apron and a black velvet hood, and a steeple-crowned beaver hat on her head. She had a long walking-staff, as long as herself, in her hand—the sort of staff that old men and old women helped themselves with long ago; I see no such staffs now, sirs.
‘Ah well, when the goodwife saw the green gentlewoman near her, she rose and made a curtsy; and “Madam,” quoth she, weeping, “I am one of the most misfortunate women alive.”