I rang the bell incontinent. Up comes
the lass, and says I, 'Bell, lat's hae a kettlefu' o' het water.' And
to mak' a lang story short, I could never want het water sin syne. For
I hadna drunken aboon a twa glaiss, afore the past began to revive as
gin ye had come ower't wi' a weet sponge. A' the colours cam' oot upo'
't again, as gin they had never turned wan and grey; and I said to
mysel' wi' pride: 'My leddy canna, wi' a' her breedin' and her bonnie
skin, haud Cosmo Cupples frae lo'ein' her.' And I followed aboot at her
again throu a' the oots and ins o' the story, and the past was restored
to me.--That's hoo it appeared to me that nicht.--Was't ony wonner that
the first thing I did whan I cam' hame the neist nicht was to ring for
the het water? I wantit naething frae Providence or Natur' but jist
that the colour michtna be a' ta'en oot o' my life. The muckle deevil
was in't, that I cudna stan' up to my fate like a man, and, gin my life
was to cast the colour, jist tak my auld cloak aboot me, and gang on
content. But I cudna. I bude to see things bonnie, or my strength gaed
frae me. But ye canna slink in at back doors that gait. I was pitten
oot, and oot I maun bide.
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