An Overheard Spanking
Apparently there’s a description of an overheard spanking in one of the Outlander books. Specifically, it’s in A Breath of Snow and Ashes:
“Well, what did do? And why?”
“Well, he’d only take his belt to her now and then,” he said, “and only if she made him.”
I took a deep breath.
“If she made him? I asked calmly, under the circumstances.
“Well, ye ken Ian,” he said, shrugging. “He’s no the one to be doing that sort of thing unless Jenny deviled him into it.”
“I never saw anything of that sort going on,” I said, giving him a hard look.
“Well, she’d scarcely do it in front of ye, would she?”
“And she would, in front of you?”
“Well, not precisely, no,” he admitted, “But I was often in the house, after Culloden. Now and then, though, I’d come down for a visit, and I’d see that she was …. brewing for something.” ….
“She’d devil him,” he said at last, shrugging. “Pick at him over nothing, make wee sarcastic remarks. She’d —” His face cleared a bit as he came up with a suitable description “She’d act like a spoilt wee lassie in need of the tawse.”
I found this description completely incredible. Jenny Murray had a sharp tongue, and few inhibitions about using it on anyone, her husband included. Ian, the soul of good nature, merely laughed at her. But I simply couldn’t countenance the notion of her behaving in the manner described.
“Well, so. I’d seen that a time or two, as I say. And Ian would give her an eye, but held his peace. But then the once…
Thinking the house was empty, he had been startled by the noises in the bedchamber overhead….
“Well… shrieks,” he said, shrugging. “And giggling. A bit of shoving and banging, with a stool or some such falling over. If it weren’t for the yaffling, I should have thought there ere thieves in the house. But I kent it was Jenny’s voice, and Ian’s, — he broke off, his ears going pink…
“So then … there was a bit more — raised voices, like — and then the crack of a belt on a bum, and the sort of skelloch ye could hear across six fields.”
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