“Ye’ll surely ne’er marry the like o’ her;—she’s only a gair’ner’s dochter.”
But I thocht of Adam and Eve, and said—“We’re a’ come of a gair’ner;”—the which caused her presently to wax vera wroth with me; and she stampit with her foot, and called me a blot on the ‘scutcheon o’ Auldbiggins; then she sat down, and began to reflec’ with herself; and, after a season, she spoke rawtional about the connection, saying she had a wife in her mind for me, far more to the purpose than such a causey-dancer as Annie Daisie.
But I couldna bide to hear Annie Daisie mislikened, and yet I was feart to commit the sin of disobedience, for my mother had no mercy when she thought I rebelled against her authority; so I sat down, and was in a tribulation, and then I speir’t, with a flutter of affliction, who it was that she had willed to be my wife.
“Miss Betty Græme,” said she; “if she can be persuaded to tak sic a headowit.”
Now this Miss Betty Græme was the tocherless sixth daughter o’ a broken Glasgow provost, and made her leevin’ by seamstress-work and flowering lawn; but she was come of gentle blood, and was herself a gentle creature, though no sae blithe as bonnie Annie Daisie; and for that I told my mother I would never take her, though it should be the death o’ me. Accordingly I ran out of the house, and took to the hills, and wistna where I was, till I found myself at the door of the Broomlands, with Annie Daisie before me, singing like a laverock as she watered the yarn of her ain spinning on the green. On seeing me, however, she stoppit, and cried—
“Gude keep us a’, laird!—what’s frightened you to flee hither?”
But I was desperate, and I ran till her, and fell on my knees in a lover-like fashion; but wha would hae thocht it?—she dang me ower on my back, and as I lay on the ground she watered me with her watering-can, and was like to dee wi’ laughing: the which sign and manifestation of hatred on her part quenched the low o’ love on mine; an’ I raise an’ went hame, drookit and dripping as I was, and told my mother I would be an obedient and dutiful son.
Soon after this, Annie Daisie was marriet to John Lounlans; and there was a fulsome phrasing about them when they were kirkit, as the comeliest couple in the parish. It was castor-oil to hear’t; and I was determined to be upsides with them, for the way she had jilted me.
In the meanwhile my mother, that never, when she had a turn in hand, alloo’t the grass to grow in her path, invited Miss Betty Græme to stay a week with us; the which, as her father’s family were in a straitened circumstance, she was glad to accept; and being come, and her mother with her, I could discern a confabbing atween the twa auld leddies—Mrs Græme shaking the head of scrupulosity, and my mother laying down the law and the gospel;—all denoting a matter-o’-money plot for me and Miss Betty.
At last it came to pass, on the morning of the third day, that Miss Betty did not rise to take her breakfast with us, but was indisposed; and when she came to her dinner, her een were bleared and begrutten. After dinner, however, my mother that day put down, what wasna common with her housewifery, a bottle o’ port in a decanter, instead o’ the gardevin for toddy, and made Miss Betty drink a glass to mak her better, and me to drink three, saying, “Faint heart never won fair leddy.” Upon the whilk hint I took another myself, and drank a toast for better acquaintance with Miss Betty. Then the twa matrons raise to leave the room, and Miss Betty was rising too; but her mother laid her hand upon her shouther, and said—