The McBrides

"Woman," said I, having led the other horses away and returned--"woman or devil, whatever you are, ye have made a horse mad this day, and now the man's mad. Will ye put an end to this business before worse happens, for the horse is worth siller if the man's regardless, and there's many a lass will greet herself to sleep till the fires of her youth are burnt out if harm comes to Dan McBride. Have ye no pity for your ain sex?"

"Peety," she cries--"peety for a wheen licht-heided hussies that lo'e the man best that tells the bonniest lees, or speaks them fairest. Na, na, ma lad, nae peety. I'm watchin' a man that has tied their strings and kissed their bonny ankles, when he should have let them dry his sweat wi' their hair an' his feet wi' their braws.[2] Oh, why, why," she kind of wailed--"why will the King aye gang the cadger's road, and ken himsel' a king, and the cadger a cadger." The horse, panting and grunting at every breath, had breenged to the knowe on the roadside, and