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country-dances, though perfect in none but the reel of Gammon.
Yet these are they, the fickle farmer fixes his fancy upon; a bundle of clouts, a skeleton of bones, Maggy and the Muteh, like twa fir-sticks and a pickle tow, neither for his plate nor his plow; very unproper plenishing, neither for her profit nor her pleasure, to plout her hands through Hawkey's caff-cog, is a hateful hardship for Mammy's pet, and will back a' her hands. All this I have seen and heard, and been witness to; but my pen being a goose-quill, cannot expose their names nor place of abode, but warns the working man out of the way. Secondly, I see another sort, who can work, and maun work till they be married, and become mistresses themselves; but as the young man receives them, the thrift leaves
them; before that, they wrought as for a wager, they span as for a premium, busked as for a brag, scour'd their din skins as a wauker does worsted blankets, kept as mun in the mouth as a 'minister's wife, comely Diana, chaste as Susanna, yet the whole of their toil is the trimming of their rigging, though their hulls be everlastingly in a leaking condition; their back and their bellies are box'd about with the fins of a big fish, six petticoute, a gown and apron, besides a side sark down to the ancle-banes; ah! what monstrous rags are here, what a cloth is consumed for a covering to one pair of
