Whippety Stourie

We’ll then let you see how we’ll manage him.”

So the lady asked them all to dine with herself and her husband, on the day when he was to come back.

When the gudeman came hame, he found the house so occupied with preparations for dinner, that he had nae time to ask his wife about her thread; and, before ever he had ance spoken to her on the subject, the company was announced at the hall door. The six ladies all came in a coach-and-six, and were as fine as princesses, but still wore their gowns of green. The gentleman was very polite, and showed them up the stair with a pair of wax candles in his hand. And so they all sat down to dinner, and conversation went on very pleasantly, till at length the husband, becoming familiar with them, said—

“Ladies, if it be not an uncivil question, I should like to know how it happens that all your mouths are turned away to one side?”

“Oh,” said ilk ane at ance, “it’s with our constant spin-spin-spinning.”

“Is that the case?” cried the gentleman; “then, John, Tam, and Dick, fie, go haste and burn every rock, and reel, and spinning-wheel in the house, for I’ll not have my wife to spoil her bonnie face with spin-spin-spinning.”

And so the lady lived happily with her gudeman all the rest of her days.