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I need na forget the getting, it was nae sae easy to me.
Mess John. How lang is it since ye was first acquaint?
Jock. Just when she came to be my mither's lass, I never saw her but ance before, an gin I had never seen her, I had never kend her after sic a fashous fashion.
Mess John. How lang was she serving with your mother?
Jock. Just twa haillerts: I got her wi' bairn about a year after she came, and it's no a year yet since I was married.
Mess John. Dear John, there is a contradiction indeed, a woman cannot go two years with child.
Jock. Deed stir, it was then the wean was first gotten.
Messs John. A John John, I find you out to be a sinful liver, you and that woman has had carnal dealings for some time; it is ill keeping the cow out of the corn, if she once gets the way of going to it; ye should actually a married the poor woman, when ye cohabited so long together.
Jock. No stir, we didna cowhabit together, tho she kist me, and I kist her, sometimes in the barn, and sometimes in the byre; nane kent o't but my mither, an she wadna let me tak her, but sent me awa' to court our Maggy.
His other cries through the hole of the door: ye senseless sumph, is that a' the thanks I get for counselling you to do weel: war na me ye wad a been married on a loun like, leepit, lazy sumph, who had neither wit nor wyles, no saw much judgment as wyse the wind frae her tail, but lut it gang a ore fouks.
Up gets the elders, crying, Fy, Fy, Duncan the bellman, drive that wicked wife frae the door, she disturbs us all.
Duncan runs to the door whispering, shame fa you for a wife, gang out o' that; but I'd rather hear you, as them yet.
Mess John. Now John, will ye be so plain as tell me whether ye promist to marry the woman or no, when ye lay wi' her.
Jock. Na stir, I didna lie wi' her, for the herd and me lay in the byre bed, an she lay in a little lang saddle at the halend end.
Mess John. It's all one whether ye lay with her or not, when ye have got her with child, that's what ye confess.
Jock. I kenna whether I got her wi' bairn or no; but I did wi' her as I did wi our Maggy, when she fell wi' bairn.
Mess John. But the question is, whether or no did you promise to marry her when that child was gotten?
Jock. Hut, tut, stir, ye wad fash fouk wi' spiering a thing t was her that promist to marry me for the getting o't.
Mess John. And did not you do the like to her?
