"But it is not the history of my brothers and sisters that I would tell you about, but my own. With the four hundred pounds which my faither left me, I began business as a linen manufacturer—that is, as a maister weaver, on what might be called a respectable scale. The year after I had commenced business upon my own account, and before I was two and twenty, I was taking a walk one Sunday afternoon on the Hawick road, along by Sorbie, and there I met the bonniest lassie, I think, that I had ever seen. I was so struck wi' her appearance, that I actually turned round and followed her. She was dressed in a duffel coat or pelisse, which I think country folk call a Joseph; but I followed her at a distance, through fields and owre stiles, till I saw her enter a sma' farm-house. There were some bits o' bairns, apparently hinds' bairns, sitting round a sort o' duck-dub near the stackyard.
"'Wha lives there, dearies?' says I to them, pointing wi' my finger to the farm-house.
"'Ned Thomson,' says they.
"'And wha was that bonny lassie,' asked I, 'that gaed in just the now?'
"'He! he! he!' the bairns laughed, and gaed me nae answer. So I put my question to them again, and ane o' the auldest o' them, a lassie about thirteen, said—'It was the maister's daughter, sir, the laird's bonny Jenny—if ye like, I'll gang in and tell her that a gentleman wishes to speak to her.'
"I certainly was very proud o' the bairn taking me to be a gentleman; but I couldna think o' meeting Miss Thompson, even if she should come out to see me, wi' such an introduction, for I was sure I would make a fool o' mysel'; and I said to the bit lassie—'No I thank ye, hinny; I'm obliged to ye'" and a' her little companions 'he! he! he'd!' and laughed the louder at my expense; which, had I not been a simple man, I never would have placed it in their power to do.
"So I went away, thinking on her face as if I had been looking at it in a glass a' the time; and to make a long story short, within three months, Miss Jenny Thompson and me became particularly weel acquaint. But my mother, who had none o' the simpleness that came by my faither's side o' the house, was then living; and when Jenny and I were on the eve o' being publicly cried in the kirk, she clapped her affidavit against it.
"'Nicol,' said she, 'son as ye are o' mine, ye're a poor simple goniel. There isna a bairn that I have among ye to mend another. Ye are your faither owre again, every one o' ye—each one more simple than another. Will ye marry a taupie that has nae recommendation but a doll's face, and bring shame and sorrow to your door?'
"I flew into a rampaging passion wi' my mother, for levelling Jenny to either shame or sorrow: but she maintained that married we should not be, if she could prevent it; and she certainly said and did everything that lay in her power to render me jealous. She might as weel have lectured to a whinstane rock. I believed Jenny to be as pure as the dew that falleth upon a lily before sunrise in May. But on the very night before we were to be married, and when I went to fit on the gloves and the ring—to my horror and inexpressible surprise, who should I see in the farm-yard, (for it was a fine star-light night,) but my Jenny—my thrice cried bride—wi' her hand upon the shouther o' the auldest son o' her faither's laird, and his arm round her waist. My first impulse was to run into the stackyard where they were, and to knock him down; but he was a strong lad, and, thinks I, 'second thoughts are best.' I was resolved, however, that my mother should find I wasna such a simpleton as she gied me out to be—so I turned round upon my heel and went home saying to mysel, as the song says—
'If this be the way of courting a wife,
I'll never look after another;
But I'll away hame and live single my lane,
And I'll away hame to my mother.'