After hearing
which, the young writer shook his head.
"You will get a trifle of aliment," said he; "perhaps half-a-crown a
week, but no more; and Mysie could have made that in a day by her
beautiful work."
"And she will never work mair," said the mother, with a sigh.
"For a hundred years," rejoined he, more to himself than to her, and
probably in congratulation of himself for his perspicacity, "and since
ever there was a College of Justice, there never was a case where a man
pulled up on oath for a promise of marriage admitted the fact. It is a
good Scotch law, only we want a people to obey it. But what," he added
again, "if we were to try it, though it were only as a grim joke and a
revenge in so sad and terrible a case as that of poor Mysie Craig!"
Words which the mother understood no more than she did law Latin; and so
she was sent away as sorrowful as she had come, for Davidson did not
want to raise hopes which there was no chance of being fulfilled; but he
knew as a Scotchman that a man who trusts himself to a "strae rape" in
the hope of its breaking, may possibly hang himself; and so it happened
that the very next day a summons was served upon George Balgarnie, to
have it found and declared by the Lords of Session that he had promised
to marry Mysie Craig, whereupon a child had been born by her; or, in
fault of that, he was bound to sustain the said child.
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