On this they paid their spout and parted; but when Sawny came out, he stoited and staggered like a sturdy stot: molash was chief commander, for Sawny thought every body had twa heads and four een, and more noses than they needed, while in the dark house he sometimes thought it was the morning of a new day: a hech, said he, when was I a night frae my mither before; she’ll think I am put in the guard, tane wi’ the deil or the doctors, or else married, and working at the wanton trade of weans making. Matty. Hute, daft laddie, the soup drink’s in your head, and gars ye think sae, this day and yesterday is ae day: ye’ll be hame in braw time yet. Sawny. A well, a well then, good day to you, good mither; ye maun gar Kate tak me, or thief tak you a thegither: I’ll hame and tell the length it’s come, and if it comes nae farther, it maun e’en stick there. Off he goes, tacking about like a ship against the wind, as if he would knock holes in the walls and windows wi’ his elbows; he looked as fierce as a lion, with a red face like a trumpeter, and his nose was like a bubbly jock’s neb, as blue as a blawart: but or he wan half way hame his head turned heavier than his heels and mony a filthy fa’ he got, through thick and thin he plashed, till hame he gets at last, grunting and gaping by the wall, when auld Mary thought it was their nibours sow, he was sae bedaubed wi dirt; by the time she got him to bed, he was in a boiling-barrel fever, and poor Mary grat wi grief. Sawny. Hech, hey! but courting be a curst wark, and costly too: an marrying be as mortifying and murdering, the deil be married for me. Mither. Wa Sawny, man, what’s come o’er thee now? thou hast gotten skaith, some auld wife has witcht thee, or the deil has dung thee o’er in some dirty midden; where hast thou been, or what hast thou seen; thae een reel like a wild cat’s, and the sweat is hailing o’er thy nose; thou’s witcht, thou’s witch’t, O man, what will I do. Bock, bock, gaed Sawney; but it could na win up for bubbles and herrin banes. Oh, quo’ he, keep me in my bed for my days will soon be done; a curse on your courting wark, for it has killed me, and wives are but wicked things, I ken by the same. Mither. O dole, dole, my bairn has gotten poison, for the smell of it is like to poison me. Sawny. Gin herring and het ale be poison, there’ll no be mony left alive. Bock, bock, Oh, quo, Sawney the bed’s filed! Mither. O my bairn, thou was ay a cleanly bairn till now; thou’s surely lost thy senses when thou files where thou lies, like the brute beasts: thou never did the like of this before since thou left rocking of the cradle. PART III