Scotland/Scots > Wilson's tales of the Borders and of Scotland > Volume 3

THE DIARY OF AN AGED SPINSTER.
87
he was the husband of another woman—though she was a
mulatto—an’ I hurried away as fast as my fainting heart
would permit. I had but one consolation, and that was,
that, though he had married another, naebody could com¬
pare her face wi’ mine.
But it was lang before I got the better o’ this sair slight
—ay, I may say it was ten years and mair; and I had to
try to pingle and find a living upon the interest o’ my five
hundred pounds, wi’ ony other thing that I could turn my
hand to in a genteel sort o’ way.
I was now getting on the wrang side o’ eight and thirty;
and that is an age when it isna prudent in a spinister to be
throwing the pouty side o’ her lip to any decent lad that
bauds out his hand, and says—‘Jenny, will ye tak me?’
Often and often, baith by day and by night, did I think o’
the good bargains I had lost, for the sake o’ my fause James
Laidlaw; and often, when I saw some o’ them that had come
praying to me, pass me on a Sunday, having their wives
wi’ their hands half round their waist on the horse behint
them—‘O James! fausc James!’ I have said, ‘but for
trusting to you, and it would hae been me that would this
day been riding behint Mr. .’
But I had still five hundred pounds, and sic fend as I
could make, to help what they brought to me. And, about
this time, there was one that had the character of being a
very respectable sort o’ a lad, one Walter Sanderson ; he
was a farmer, very near about my own age, and altogether
a most prepossessing and intelligent young man. I first
met wi’ him at my youngest sister’s goodman’s kirn,* and
I must say, a better or a more gracefu’ dancer I never saw
upon a floor. He had neither the jumping o’ a mounte¬
bank, nor the sliding o’ a play-actor, but there was an ease
in his carriage which I never saw equalled. I was parti¬
cularly struck wi’ him, and especially his dancing; and it
* Harvest Home.