"Matter!" replied Jenny--"matter!"--adjusting her dress, and now red from ear to ear--"why, I believe, after a', there is nae great matter--but that body frightened me sae with his kists and his coffins, I was amaist out o' my wits." "Kists and coffins, ye gomeril woman!--why, that's a packman; and I'll warrant he has as mony shawls, and gown-pieces, and ribbons, and as muckle braw Brussels lace in his box, as wad set ye fleeing to kirk on Sabbath, like an Indian queen. Come in, lad--come ben--it's getting dark, and ye're far here frae ony neighbour town--come away, and ye shall hae yer supper in the spense, and yer bed in the cha'mer--and Jenny there into the bargain, if ye will only promise to mak us rid o' her for guid and a'." "Jenny!--hegh! that's ane indeed!" responded the fair tripe scourer.--"I'se warrant, guidman, ye wad soon be sending a' owre the country, and sticking up bits o' paper on the kirk doors, war I only four-and-twenty hours amissing; and, as for Wee Watty there--if there be a bauk low enough to hang him, ye wad be sure to find him, ere the first twal hours were owre, dangling frae't, like a periwinkie candle hanging to a spit." Upon this sally of Nanny's wit, all things were put to rights, and the packman was snugly lodged _versus_ the guidman, the guidwife, and God only knows how many persons, in the spence, or small apartment adjoining to and looking in upon the kitchen. The chapman's drouth is proverbial--and, to assuage it, I was immediately supplied with a cog o' crap-whey, bannocks, and a ram-horn spoon, just to put aff the time till supper was ready! In the meanwhile, the inmates of the farmer's kitchen began and continued to congregate. Some half-score of acres of inland croft had just been reaped, and there had been the promise of a hett supper and a dance, to conclude the comparatively insignificant grain harvest. James Hogg, then a youth of twenty-four, acted as chief musician, and contrived to extract from the thairms of an old time-worn fiddle, some sounds, which, when assisted by a lively imagination and high animal spirits, passed for music. And the guidman led off the dance wi' the guidwife--snapping his fingers, and springing three or four times over the kitchen fire. The guidwife enjoyed the fun exceedingly; and, though encumbered in more ways than one, spread her napkin over her breast--adjusted her pockets and nether garments, and presented herself every now and then to the guidman, with a sly look and a sidelong bob. I was lucky enough to get hold of Nanny, whom, in spite of Wee Watty, as he was termed, I drew at once into the centre of the whirlpool, and there we went, hand in hand, round and round, with the velocity of planets whose orbits are limited--Wee Watty, for the time, having supplied himself with Nell Morrison, a tall, prepossessing wench, who seemed to rejoice in vexing my partner, Nanny, who was manifestly Wee Watty's favourite. Shepherds--as Wilson would say,