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Then suddenly changing her tone to that of the most piteous entreaty, she added, "O gar them let me gang to cut her down! let me but cut her down! she is my mother, if she was waur than the deil, and she'll be nae mair kenspeckle than half-hangit Maggie Dickson,* that cried saut mony a day after she had been hangit; her voice was roupit and hoarse, and her neck was a wee agee, or ye wad hae kend nae odds on her frae ony other saut-wife."
Francesca was miserably envious that she had not thought of tartans first. "You may consider yourself 'geyan fine, all covered over with Scotch plaid, but I wouldn't be so 'kenspeckle' for worlds!" she said, using expressions borrowed from Mrs. M'Collop; "and as for disguising your nationality, do not flatter yourself that you look like anything but an American.
Torrance on that occasion "Kenspeckle here my lane I stand" unfortunately too indelicate for further citation, ran through the country like a fiery cross; they were recited, quoted, paraphrased, and laughed over as far away as Dumfries on the one hand and Dunbar on the other.
He is for Edinburgh, I will warrant you so soon as daylight comes I will be on the road again. It is a kenspeckle hoof-mark, for the shoe was made by old Eckie of Cannobie I would swear to the curve of the caulker." So saying, he departed. "Hateful necessity," said Father Eustace, looking after him, "that obliges us to use such implements as these!
Upon my introduction to his grace the Commissioner, I was delighted and surprised to find the Lord Eaglesham at the levee, and his lordship was so glad on seeing me, that he made me more kenspeckle than I could have wished to have been in his grace's presence; for, owing to the same, I was required to preach before his grace, upon a jocose recommendation of his lordship; the which gave me great concern, and daunted me so that in the interim I was almost bereft of all peace and studious composure of mind.
Torrance on that occasion "Kenspeckle here my lane I stand" unfortunately too indelicate for further citation, ran through the country like a fiery cross they were recited, quoted, paraphrased, and laughed over as far away as Dumfries on the one hand and Dunbar on the other.
It was for that he used at last to show a new suit on the town by gentle degrees, the first Sunday the waistcoat, the next Sunday the waistcoat and trousers, and finally the complete splendour. Now he felt kenspeckle, not in any suit of material clothes but in a droll sense of nakedness.
A fine stream ran through it, coming down the glen on our right, and falling afterwards into a dark, woody ravine. I mistrusted the look of it, for there was no cover, and 'twas in full view of the whole flanks of the hills. Ringan, too, was disturbed. "Twould be wiser like to wait for darkness before trying that bit," he said. "We'll be terrible kenspeckle to the gentry we ken of."
"Naething kenspeckle," said he, "plain, dacent claes. As for the rapier, nae doubt it sits wi' your degree; but an I had been you, I would hae waired my siller better-gates than that." And proposed I should buy winter-hosen from a wife in the Cowgate-back, that was a cousin of his own, and made them "extraordinar endurable." But I had other matters on my hand more pressing.
A place sacred to kenspeckle folk it was, and from its smoke-stained rafters hung many pieces of bacon and dried shallots, and there were also bunches of centaury, and camomile, and dandelion root, and bogbean, for the goodman's wife was cunning in medicines of the older-fashioned sort.
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