A comic mishap — the ducks knock over old Daddie, to the children’s gleeful shouts — sets off a domestic squabble. The wife, Nansie, snaps first: she’s had enough of her husband, dismissing him as a feckless “paidlin’ body” who has spent seven years wandering in and out with no real substance. Her scorn slides from impatience into something wearier. The old man answers with mingled hurt and dignity. He reminds her that she once buttered his brose and cuddled him day and night, and that age’s weakness, not lack of love, has stolen his strength. Now “downa-do” — that heavy, helpless feeling of being past one’s prime — has settled on him, and her sharpness cuts deeply. The mood is more wry than tragic: a flicker of fond memory rubbed raw by present bitterness, leaving you to wonder what remains when the duck-upsetting days are gone.
375. Song—The Deuks dang o’er my Daddie — Summary
THE BAIRNS gat out wi’ an unco shout, The deuks dang o’er my daddie, O! The fien-ma-care, quo’ the feirrie auld wife, He was but a paidlin’ body, O! He paidles out, and he paidles in, An’ he paidles late and early, O! This seven lang years I hae lien by his side, An’ he is but a fusionless carlie, O.
O haud your tongue, my feirrie auld wife, O haud your tongue, now Nansie, O: I’ve seen the day, and sae hae ye, Ye wad na ben sae donsie, O. I’ve seen the day ye butter’d my brose, And cuddl’d me late and early, O; But downa-do’s come o’er me now, And oh, I find it sairly, O!