Anthony's blessed Well some braw night just like this, and I'll
cry up Ailie Muschat, and she and I will hae a grand bouking-washing, and
bleach our claes in the beams of the bonny Lady Moon, that's far
pleasanter to me than the sun--the sun's ower het, and ken ye, cummers,
my brains are het eneugh already. But the moon, and the dew, and the
night-wind, they are just like a caller kail-blade laid on my brow; and
whiles I think the moon just shines on purpose to pleasure me, when
naebody sees her but mysell."
This raving discourse she continued with prodigious volubility, walking
on at a great pace, and dragging Ratcliffe along with her, while he
endeavoured, in appearance at least, if not in reality, to induce her to
moderate her voice.
All at once she stopped short upon the top of a little hillock, gazed
upward fixedly, and said not one word for the space of five minutes.
"What the devil is the matter with her now?" said Sharpitlaw to
Ratcliffe--"Can you not get her forward?"
"Ye maun just take a grain o' patience wi' her, sir," said Ratcliffe.
"She'll no gae a foot faster than she likes herself."
"D--n her," said Sharpitlaw, "I'll take care she has her time in Bedlam
or Bridewell, or both, for she's both mad and mischievous."
In the meanwhile, Madge, who had looked very pensive when she first
stopped, suddenly burst into a vehement fit of laughter, then paused and
sighed bitterly,--then was seized with a second fit of laughter--then,
fixing her eyes on the moon, lifted up her voice and sung,--
"Good even, good fair moon, good even to thee;
I prithee, dear moon, now show to me
The form and the features, the speech and degree,
Of the man that true lover of mine shall be.
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