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and maoe new again, to make his feet feasible like, as he kend the lass would look at them (for his mither tell’d him the women looked ay to the mens legs or they married them, and the weel-legged loons gade ay best aft.)
So Sawny came swaggering through a the shell wives, but she was no there, going down the town below the guard he met auld Be-go just in the teeth, an she cries, Hey laddie my dow, how’s your mither honest Mary? Thank you, quo’ Sawny, she’s meat hale, aye working some—how’s a at hame, is Kate and the laddie weel?
Matty. Fu’ weel, my dow: ye’re a braw sonsy dog grown, a wallie fa’me gin I kend ye.
Come, come, quo’ Sawny, and I’ll gie ye a nossack to heat your wame, it is a eauld day, and ye’re my mither’s countrywoman.
Na, fair fa’ you, Sawny, I’ll nae refus’t; a dram’s better the day than a elap on the arse wi' a cauld shule, sae follow me, my dow.
So awa’ she took me, quo’ Sawny, down a dark stair, to ane o’ the houses beneath the yird, where it was mirk as in a coal heugh, and they had a great fire. Sweet be wi me quo’ Sawny, for it minds me of the ill part; an a muckle pot has a little eauldron, seething kail and roasting flesh, the wife forked them out as fast us she could into