"'What, William!' she cried, 'what do ye talk aboot? Losh me, man, have ye nae mair sense?—have ye nae discretion whatever? Will ye really rush upon ruin at a horse-race? Ye talk aboot getting a machine! How, I ask ye, how do ye expect that ever ye could prosper for a single day after, if ye were to throw oor twa decent barn-men oot o' employment, and their families oot o' bread? I just ask ye that question, William. Does na the proverb say—'Live and let live;' and hoo are men to live, if, by an invention o' the Enemy o' mankind, ye tak work oot o' their hands, and bread oot o' their mouths?'
"'Dear me, Kirsty!' said I, 'hoo is it possible that a woman o' your excellent sense can talk such nonsense? Ye see very weel that, if I had had a machine, I micht hae made a hundred pounds mair than I did by last year's crops—that, certainly, would hae been a good turn to us—and, tak my word for it, it is neither in the power nor in the nature o' the Evil One to do a guid turn to onybody.'
"'Willie,' quoth she, 'ye talk like a silly man—like a very silly man, indeed. If the Enemy o' mankind hadna it in his power to do for us what we tak to be for oor guid, hoo in the warld do ye think he could tempt us to our hurt? I say, that thrashing-machines are an invention o' his, and that they are ane o' the instruments he is bringing up for the ruin o' this country. It is him, and him alone, that is putting it into your head to buy ane o' his infernal devices, in order that he may not only ruin you, baith soul and body, by filling ye wi' a desire o' riches, an' making ye the oppressor and the robber o' the poor, but that, through your oppression and robbery, he may ruin them also, and bring them to shame or the gallows!'
"'Forgie me, Kirsty,' said I, 'what in a' the world do ye mean? Hoo is it possible that ye can talk aboot me as likely to be either an oppressor or a robber o' the poor? I'll declare there never was a beggar passed either me or my door, that ever I saw, but I gied him something. I'm sure, guidwife, ye baith ken better o' me, and think better o' me than to talk sae.'
"'Yes, William,' said she, 'I did think better o' ye; but I noo see distinctly that the Enemy is leading ye blindfolded to your ruin. First, through the pride o' your heart, he tempted ye to tak this big farm, that, as ye thocht, ye might hasten to be rich; and now he is seducing ye to buy ane o' his diabolical machines for the same end, and in order that ye may not only deprive honest men and their families o' bread, but, belike, rather than starve, tempt them to steal! And what ca' ye that but oppressing and robbing the poor? Hooever, buy a machine!—buy ane, and ye'll see what will be the upshot! If ye dinna repent it, say I'm no your wife.'
"I confess her words were onything but agreeable to me, and they rather set me a hesitating hoo to act. Hooever my mind was bent upon buying the machine. I had said to several o' my neebors that I intended to hae ane put up; and I was convinced that, if I drew back o' my word, it would be said that my wife wouldna let me get it, and I would be made a general laughing-stock—and that was a thing that I held in greater dread than even my wife's lectures, severe as they sometimes were; therefore, reason or nane, I got a machine put up. It caused a very general outcry amongst a' the 'datal' men and their wives for miles round. At ae time I even thocht that they would mob me and pull it to pieces. But all their clamour was a mere snaw-flake fa'ing in the sea, compared wi' the perpetual dirdum that Kirsty rang in my ears about it. She actually threatened that judgments would follow, and I didna ken a' what. But, on the morning o' the day that I yoked the horses into it, and began to thrash wi' it for the first time I declare to you that she took the six bairns wi' her, and absolutely went to her faither's, vowing to work for them until the blood sprang from her finger-ends, rather then live wi' a man that would be guilty o' such madness and iniquity.
"But having heard before dinner-time that I had had to employ a woman at sixpence a-day to feed into the machine she came back as fast as her feet could carry her, wi' a' the bairns behint her, and ordering the stranger away, began to feed the machine hersel', and the bairns carried her the sheaves.
"I saw that out o' a spirit o' pure wickedness, she was distressing hersel' far beyond what there was the sma'est occasion for. It was as clear as day, that indignation was working in her heart, like barm fermenting in a bottle, and just about half an hour before we were to leave off thrashing for the nicht, she was seized with a very alarming pain in the breast. I saw and said it was a hysterical affection, and was altogether the consequence o' the passion that she had given way to on account o' the unlucky machine. She, however, denied that there were such diseases in existence as either hysterical or nervous affections. They were sham disorders, she said, that cam into the country wi' tea and spirit-drinking; and she assuredly was free from indulging in either the ane or the other. But she grew worse and worse, and was at last obliged to sit down upon some straw on the barn-floor. I ventured forward to her, and said—'Kirsty, woman, ye had better gang awa into the house. Ye will do yersel' mair ill by sittin there, for there is a current o' air through the loft, which, after you being warm with working, may gie ye your death o' cauld. Rise up, dear, and gang awa into the house, and try if a glass o' usquebae will do ye ony guid.'
"Maister Burns, the poet, has said—
'She has an ee, she has but ane;'