“And what, in your wisdom,” said he sharply, “do ye think it would hae been—the wife or the wuddy?”
“O Gideon! Gideon!” said she, good-humouredly, and shaking her head, “weel do ye ken that your choice would hae been a wife.”
“There ye are wrang,” cried he; “I would rather die a death that was before me, than marry a wife I had never seen. But go ye and prepare Meg for becoming a bride the morn, and I shall see what the intended bridegroom says to the proposal.”
In obedience to his commands, she went to an apartment in which their eldest daughter Agnes, but commonly called “Meikle-mouthed Meg,” then sat, twirling a distaff. The old dame sat down by her daughter’s side, and, after a few observations respecting the weather, and the quality of the lint she was then torturing into threads, she said—“Weel, I’m just thinking, Meggie, that ye mak me an auld woman. Ye would be six-and-twenty past at last Lammas.”
“So I believe, mother!” said Meggie; and a sigh, or a very deep and long-drawn breath, followed her words.
“Dear me!” continued the old lady, “young men maun be growing very scarce. I wanted four months and five days o’ being nineteen when I married your faither, and I had refused at least six offers before I took him!”
“Ay, mother,” replied the maiden; “but ye had a weel-faured face—there lay the difference! Heigho!”
“Heigho!” responded her mother, as in pleasant raillery—“what is the lassie heighoing at? Certes, if ye get a guidman before ye be six and twenty, ye may think yoursel’ a very fortunate woman.”
“Yes,” added the maiden; “but I see sma’ prospect o’ that. I doubt ye will see the Ettrick running through the ‘dowie dells o’ Yarrow,’ before ye hear tell o’ an offer being made to me.”
“Hoot, hoot!—dinna say sae, bairn,” added her mother; “there is nae saying what may betide ye yet. Ye think ye winna be married before ye are six and twenty; but, truly, my dear, there has mony a mair unlikely ship come to land. Now, what wad ye think o’ the young laird o’ Harden?”