A WIDOW'S WONDER.

Southland Times, Issue 1307, 13 September 1870, Page 3

A WIDOW'S WONDER.

Leezie M'Cutcheon was perfectly inconsolable on the death of Peter, her husband, with whom she had lived some thirty years. Leezie was very peevish and discontented, and subject to bits o' touts now and then ; and in these illnesses was always ready to cry out, and yammer to Peter, " I'm gaun to dee noo, and the earth will no' be cauld on my puir body, when my shoon will be filled by some glaiket young hizzy. " Dinna be feared, Leezie, my doo," said Peter in reply ; " and dinna vex yoursel' about that ; tak' my word on't, yell never either hear, see, or hear tell o' sic an' event. If Providence, Leezie, should tak' ye awa' at this time, which I think there's little likelihood o' His doing, for I dinna think ye sac ill as ye ween, ye'li leave nae weans ahint to be ill-used— which should be a great comfort to you ; and as for mysel', 1 1, can just put on my bounet, and thank my Maker that it covers my hale family." j It happened, however, that honest Peter wasthe.first to' slip away, and disappointed Leezie of her fears for a successor. On the melancholy occasion of Peter's decease, Janet Bibston, a neighbor, who had suffered a similar bereavement, called in to comfort her in affliction. Janet was of kindred temperament, and knew practically every note of the widow's gamut. " Weel, Leezie, nae wonder that ye're like to gang detnentit wi' perfect vexation. Wha was like him that's dead and awa' ? Aye sac kind and sac hearty — the very picture o' quid nature — the laugh was never awa' frae his lip, or the joke out o' his mouth." " Oh, haud your tongue, Janet ! Dinna say ony mair about him to me — my heart is just like to break in twa. I mind the day that he and I first fore-gathered. It was at a fair in Lanrick. I was a trig, weel-faur'd lassie then, though I say't mysel', and there was a fiddle playing, and some folk dancing a' round us. Quo he, * My bonnie lassie, will ye tak' a reel ? I just said I didna care, if I had a partner onything like himsel'* I mind the very tune that the fiddler played to us, as weel as if I heard the bow screeding o'er the strings the noo. It was tural-lural-lah-lah (oh me, that it has come to this !) Ay, after that day, woman, Peter and me were lad and lass. It's just as 'twere yesterday to me, the nicht he speerfc at me gif I would be his for better or for waur ; and I just said, in an off-putfcinsj kind o' way, that I would like to hae his character frae somebody that had kenn'd him lansjer than I had ! done. ' Weel, weel,' said he, wi' a bit laugh — ye mind his bit nicher, Jenny ? — ' come awa' to my mither ; naebody has kenn'd me langer than she has done ;' and awa' we gaed next day — oursels twa — me ridin' ahint him ; and, puir body, his mither was sac proud to see her son takin' up, as she said, wi' sic a weel-faur'd lassie and a bonny character she gied him as ever onybody got — and I mind she concluded wi' saying ' that he had been sac quid a son to her, and was na' likely to mak' an ill man to me ;' and oh ! sac happy as we were a'thegither ; and she gathered twa or three o' her neigbors, and gied us a ' bit ding,' and Peter, he had to sing to us, and a braw singer he was when he likit. I mind the very sang too. It was ' Oh, gin thou wert my am lassie !' Oh me, Janet, I wonder wha's lassie I'm to be next ?"