"Is that your signature, sir?" said she, looking calmly at her husband.
"Ou ay—I believe, yes—I did put my name to that paper," replied Andrew, in great agitation; "but I thocht ye left me to do as I chose when ye gaed oot. If ye didna want me to sign it, ye shouldna hae left the room."
"A bill is no a bindin document," continued she, without seeming to attend to what the boxmaster said, "until it be delivered. It's no delivered sae lang as it is in my hands; and never will be delivered by me sae lang as I recollect the words o' the wise man o' the east, wha said—'If thou be surety for thy friend, thou art snared with the words o' thy mouth.' Yet this paper is no my property. The stamp is yours, though my husband's name is still his." Turning to the boxmaster, who was shaking and retaining his breath with pure fear—"Do you stand by this, sir," said she, in a commanding voice, which increased his fear, "or do ye repent o't?"
"I repent o't," replied Andrew, with dry lips, and a gurgling of the throat, as if he had been on the eve of choking.
"Then, I fancy," continued Mrs Jean Todd, "ye would like yer name back again?"
"Ou ay—surely," replied Andrew.
"Well, then," said she, as she with the greatest coolness took up her scissors that hung by her side, and with affected precision cut away his name; "there it is"—handing it to him. And turning to the deacon—"The rest is yours, sir—I hae nae richt to meddle wi' your name—there's yer paper"—returning to him the mutilated bill.
At this operation the deacon stared with a stupified look of wonder and contempt. He had never before seen so cool an example of female rule and marital weakness; and his pride, his selfishness, and his spite were all roused and interested by the extraordinary sight. He was too much affected for indulging in a vulgar expression of feelings which could not adequately be expressed by mere language. Taking up his hat, and casting upon the boxmaster a look of sovereign contempt, and upon Mrs Jean Todd one of anger, he bowed as low as a deacon ought to do, and left the room. The circumstance produced no very unpleasant consequences to either the boxmaster or his wife. She, no doubt, reproved him for his stupidity; but the point of her wrath was turned away by the repentance and soft words of her husband, who promised never to do the like again. He had, besides, some defence, arising out of her dubious conduct, which, though quite easily understood, he could not well comprehend. The naïvete of his statement, that "she shouldna hae left him unprotected," was quite enough to have mollified a much sterner woman than Mrs Jean Todd, and during that same night they were a far happier couple than Deacon Waldie and his fair spouse.
When the deacon went home, and reported the extraordinary proceeding to his obedient wife, the grief it occasioned was in some degree overcome, on the part of the husband, by the favourable contrast it enabled him to form between the boxmaster and his wife, and him and his obedient spouse. Mrs Waldie did all in her power to aid the operation; but she did not forget the bill, which her father was pressing hard to procure.
"Surely every man's no under the rule o' his wife," said she, with the view to leading to another cautioner.