“Steenie will no do for me,” retorted Jenny, with a toss of her head that might have become a higher-born damsel; “I maun hae a man that can mainteen his wife.”
“Ou ay, hinny—thae’s your landward and burrows-town notions. My certie!—fisherwives ken better—they keep the man, and keep the house, and keep the siller too, lass.”
“A wheen poor drudges ye are,” answered the nymph of the land to the nymph of the sea. “As sune as the keel o’ the coble touches the sand, deil a bit mair will the lazy fisher loons work, but the wives maun kilt their coats, and wade into the surf to tak the fish ashore. And then the man casts aff the wat and puts on the dry, and sits down wi’ his pipe and his gill-stoup ahint the ingle, like ony auld houdie, and neer a turn will he do till the coble’s afloat again! And the wife she maun get the scull on her back, and awa wi’ the fish to the next burrows-town, and scauld and ban wi’ilka wife that will scauld and ban wi’her till it’s sauld—and that’s the gait fisher-wives live, puir slaving bodies.”
“Slaves?—gae wa’, lass!—ca’ the head o’ the house slaves? little ye ken about it, lass. Show me a word my Saunders daur speak, or a turn he daur do about the house, without it be just to tak his meat, and his drink, and his diversion, like ony o’ the weans. He has mair sense than to ca’ anything about the bigging his ain, frae the rooftree down to a crackit trencher on the bink. He kens weel eneugh wha feeds him, and cleeds him, and keeps a’ tight, thack and rape, when his coble is jowing awa in the Firth, puir fallow. Na, na, lass!—them that sell the goods guide the purse—them that guide the purse rule the house. Show me ane o’ yer bits o’ farmer-bodies that wad let their wife drive the stock to the market, and ca’ in the debts. Na, na.”
“Aweel, aweel, Maggie, ilka land has its ain lauch—But where’s Steenie the night, when a’s come and gane? And where’s the gudeman?” *
* Note G. Gynecocracy.
“I hae putten the gudeman to his bed, for he was e’en sair forfain; and Steenie’s awa out about some barns-breaking wi’ the auld gaberlunzie, Edie Ochiltree: they’ll be in sune, and ye can sit doun.”
“Troth, gudewife” (taking a seat), “I haena that muckle time to stop—but I maun tell ye about the news. Yell hae heard o’ the muckle kist o’ gowd that Sir Arthur has fund down by at St. Ruth?—He’ll be grander than ever now—he’ll no can haud down his head to sneeze, for fear o’ seeing his shoon.”
“Ou ay—a’ the country’s heard o’ that; but auld Edie says that they ca’ it ten times mair than ever was o’t, and he saw them howk it up. Od, it would be lang or a puir body that needed it got sic a windfa’.”
“Na, that’s sure eneugh.—And yell hae heard o’ the Countess o’ Glenallan being dead and lying in state, and how she’s to be buried at St. Ruth’s as this night fa’s, wi’ torch-light; and a’ the popist servants, and Ringan Aikwood, that’s a papist too, are to be there, and it will be the grandest show ever was seen.”