For so far as regards
Mrs. Jenny Dodds, she was, as much as a good wife could be, free from
any great defects of conduct; and as for the tinsmith himself, he had
hitherto lived so sober and douce a life, that we cannot avoid the
notion, that if he had not been subject to "aiblins a great temptation,"
he would not have become the victim of the arch-enemy. Thus much we say
of the dispositions of the two parties; and were it not that certain
peculiarities belonged to Jenny, which, as reappearing in an after-part
of our story, it is necessary to know, we would not have gone further
into mere character--an element which has little to do generally with
legends, except in so far as it either produces the incidents, or may be
developed through them. The first of these peculiarities was a settled
conviction that she had as good a right to rule Tammas Dodds, as being
her property, as if she had drunk of the waters of St. Kevin. Nor was
this conviction merely natural to her; for she could lay her finger on
that particular part of Sacred Writ which is the foundation of the
generally-received maxim, "One may do what one likes with one's own.
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