'
"'To such a messenger, and to those who sent him, no apology is needed,'
said the austere Laird, 'so let him depart.' And the clatter of a
horse's hoofs was heard, and the muttered imprecations of its rider
on the churlish treatment he had experienced.
"'Now, Sandie, my lad,' said his wife, laying an arm particularly white
and round about his neck as she spoke, 'are you not a queer man and
a stern? I have been your wedded wife now these three years; and,
beside my dower, have brought you three as bonnie bairns as ever smiled
aneath a summer sun. O man, you a douce man, and fitter to be an elder
than even Willie Greer himself, I have the minister's ain word for't,
to put on these hard-hearted looks, and gang waving your arms that way,
as if ye said, "I winna take the counsel of sic a hempie as you"; I'm
your ain leal wife, and will and maun have an explanation.'
"To all this Sandie Macharg replied, 'It is written, "Wives, obey your
husbands"; but we have been stayed in our devotion, so let us pray.
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