But it was weel on for five years since I had singled her out; and
though I never said a word anent the subject o' matrimony, yet I had
reason to think she had a shrewd guess that my heart louped quicker when
she opened her lips than if a regiment o' infantry had stealed behint me
unobserved, and fired their muskets ower my shouther; and I sometimes
thought that her een looked as if she wished to say, 'Are ye no gaun to
ask me, David?'
"But still, when I thought she had been brought up a leddy in a kind o'
manner, I durstna venture to mint the matter; but I was fully resolved
and determined, should I succeed in getting the money I was trying for,
to break the business clean aff hand. So, ye see, as soon as I got the
siller, what does I do but sits down and writes her a letter--and sic a
letter! I tauld her a' my mind as freely as though I had been speakin'
to you. Weel, ye see, I gaed bang through to Edinburgh at ance, no three
days after my letter; and up I goes to the Lawnmarket, where she was
living wi' her mother, and raps at the door without ony ceremony. But
when I had rapped, I was in a swither whether to staun till they came
out or no, for my heart began to imitate the knocker, or rather to tell
me how I ought to have knocked; for it wasna a loud, solid drover's
knock like mine, but it kept rit-tit-tat-ting on my breast like the
knock of a hairdresser's 'prentice bringing a bandbox fu' o' curls and
ither knick-knackeries, for a leddy to pick and choose on for a fancy
ball; and my face lowed as though ye were haudin' a candle to it; when
out comes the servant, and I stammers out, 'Is your mistress in?' says
I.
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