I am going to take Marjorie wi’ me, and you may come to your tea in Duncan Roy’s sedan, and bring the bairn home in your lap.”  “Tak’ Marjorie, and it on-ding o’ snaw!” said Mrs. Keith.  He said to himself, “On-ding,’—­that’s odd,—­that is the very word.  Hoot, awa’! look here,” and he displayed the corner of his plaid, made to hold lambs [the true shepherd’s plaid, consisting of two breadths sewed together, and uncut at one end, making a poke or cul-de-sac].  “Tak’ your lamb,” said she, laughing at the contrivance, and so the Pet was first well happit up, and then put, laughing silently, into the plaid neuk, and the shepherd strode off with his lamb,—­Maida gamboling through the snow, and running races in her mirth.

Didn’t he face “the angry airt,” and make her bield his bosom, and into his own room with her, and lock the door, and out with the warm rosy little wifie, who took it all with great composure!  There the two remained for three or more hours, making the house ring with their laughter; you can fancy the big man’s and Maidie’s laugh.  Having made the fire cheery, he set her down in his ample chair, and standing sheepishly before her, began to say his lesson, which happened to be,—­“Ziccotty, diccotty, dock, the mouse ran up the clock; the clock struck one, down the mouse ran, ziccotty, diccotty, dock.”  This done repeatedly till she was pleased, she gave him his new lesson, gravely and slowly, timing it upon her small fingers,—­he saying it after her,—­

     “Wonery, twoery, tickery, seven;
     Alibi, crackaby, ten and eleven;
     Pin, pan, musky dan;
     Tweedle-um, twoddle-um, twenty-wan;
     Eerie, orie, ourie,
     You, are, out.”

He pretended to great difficulty, and she rebuked him with most comical gravity, treating him as a child.  He used to say that when he came to Alibi Crackaby he broke down, and Pin-Pan, Musky-Dan, Tweedle-um Twoddle-um made him roar with laughter.  He said Musky-Dan especially was beyond endurance, bringing up an Irishman and his hat fresh from the Spice Islands and odoriferous Ind; she getting quite bitter in her displeasure at his ill behavior and stupidness.

Then he would read ballads to her in his own glorious way, the two getting wild with excitement over ‘Gil Morrice’ or the ’Baron of Smailholm’; and he would take her on his knee, and make her repeat Constance’s speech in ‘King John,’ till he swayed to and fro, sobbing his fill....

Scott used to say that he was amazed at her power over him, saying to Mrs. Keith, “She’s the most extraordinary creature I ever met with, and her repeating of Shakespeare overpowers me as nothing else does.”