I AM MUCH IN THE HANDS OF THE LADIES.
219
"And where'll she be now?" says I.
"Gude kens!" says Doig, with a shrug.
"She'll have gone home to Lady Allardyce, I'm thinking," said I.
"That'll be it," said he.
"Then I'll gang there straight," says I.
"But ye'll be for a bite or ye go?" said he.
"Neither bite nor sup," said I. "I had a good wauch of milk in by Ratho."
"Aweel, aweel," says Doig. "But ye'll can leave your horse here and your bags, for it seems we're to have your up-put."
"Na, na", said I. "Tamson's mear[1] would never be the thing for me this day of all days."
Doig speaking somewhat broad, I had been led by imitation into an accent much more countrified than I was usually careful to affect—a good deal broader, indeed, than I have written it down; and I was the more ashamed when another voice joined in behind me with a scrap of a ballad:
Gae saddle sune and mak' him ready,
For I will down the Gatehope-slack,
And a' to see my bonny leddy."
The young lady, when I turned to her, stood in a morning gown, and her hands muffled in the same, as if to hold me at a distance. Yet I could not but think there was kindness in the eye with which she saw me.
"My best respects to you, Mistress Grant," said I, bowing.
- ↑ Tamson's mare—to go afoot.