'
'Gae hame, gudewife, quoth the farmer aforesaid; 'it wad better set you
to be nursing the gudeman's bairns than to be deaving us here.'
'HIS bairns!' retorted the amazon, regarding her husband with a grin of
ineffable contempt--'HIS bairns!
O gin ye were dead, gudeman,
And a green turf on your head, gudeman!
Then I would ware my widowhood
Upon a ranting Highlandman.'
This canticle, which excited a suppressed titter among the younger part
of the audience, totally overcame the patience of the taunted man of the
anvil. 'Deil be in me but I'll put this het gad down her throat!' cried
he, in an ecstasy of wrath, snatching a bar from the forge; and he might
have executed his threat, had he not been withheld by a part of the mob;
while the rest endeavoured to force the termagant out of his presence.
Waverley meditated a retreat in the confusion, but his horse was nowhere
to be seen. At length he observed, at some distance, his faithful
attendant, Ebenezer, who, as soon as he had perceived the turn matters
were likely to take, had withdrawn both horses from the press, and,
mounted on the one, and holding the other, answered the loud and
repeated calls of Waverley for his horse--'Na, na! if ye are nae friend
to kirk and the king, and are detained as siccan a person, ye maun
answer to honest men of the country for breach of contract; and I maun
keep the naig and the walise for damage and expense, in respect my
horse and mysell will lose to-morrow's day's-wark, besides the afternoon
preaching.
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