FullReads

“Guid e’en to ye, mistress; hoo’s a’ at Drumquhat the nicht?” says Tammock.

“Come your ways by, an’ tak’ a seat by the fire, Tammock; it’s no’ a kindly nicht for auld banes,” says the wife.

“Ay, guidwife, ‘deed and I sympathise wi’ ye,” says Tammock. “It’s what we maun a’ come to some day.”

“Doitered auld body!” exclaimed my wife, “did ye think I was meanin’ mysel’?”

“Wha else?” said Tammock, reaching forward to get a light for his pipe from the hearth where a little glowing knot had fallen, puffing out sappy wheezes as it burned. He looked slyly up at the mistress as he did so.

“Tammock,” said she, standing with her arms wide set, and her hands on that part of the onstead that appears to have been built for them, “wad hae ye mind that I was but a lassock when ye cam’ knoitin’ an’ hirplin’ alang the Ayrshire road frae Dalmellington.”

“I mind brawly,” said Tammock, drawing bravely away. “Ay, Mary, ye were a strappin’ wean. Ye said ye wadna hae me; I mind that weel. That was the way ye fell in wi’ Drumquhat, when I gied up thochts o’ ye mysel’.”

” You gie up thochts o’ me, Tammock! Was there ever siccan presumption? Ye’ll no’ speak that way in my hoose. Hoo daur ye? Saunders, hear till him. Wull ye sit there like a puddock on a post, an’ listen to this–this Ayrshireman misca’ your marriet wife, Alexander M’Quhirr? Shame till ye, man!”

My married wife was well capable of taking care of herself in anything that appertained to the strife of tongues. In the circumstances, therefore, I did not feel called upon to interfere.

“Ye can tak’ a note o’ the circumstance an’ tell the minister the next time he comes owre,” said I, dry as a mill-hopper.

She whisked away into the milk-house, taking the door after her as far as it would go with a flaff that brought a bowl, which had been set on its edge to dry, whirling off the dresser on to the stone floor.

When the wife came back, she paused before the fragments. We were sitting smoking very peacefully and wondering what was coming.

“Wha whammelt my cheeny bowl?” said Mistress M’Quhirr, in a tone which, had I not been innocent, would have made me take the stable.

“Wha gaed through that door last?” said I.

“The minister,” says she.

“Then it maun hae been the minister that broke the bowl. Pit it by for him till he comes. I’m no’ gaun to be wracked oot o’ hoose an’ hame for reckless ministers.”

“But wha was’t?” she said, still in doubt.

“Juist e’en the waff o’ your ain coat-tails, mistress,” said Tammock. “I hae seen the day that mair nor bowls whammelt themsel’s an’ brak’ into flinders to be after ye.”

And Tammock sighed a sigh and shook his head at the red greesoch in the grate.

“Hoots, haivers!” said the mistress. But I could see she was pleased, and wanted Tammock to go on. He was a great man all his days with the women-folk by just such arts. On the contrary, I am for ever getting cracks on the crown for speaking to them as ye would do to a man body. Some folk have the gift and it is worth a hundred a year to them at the least.

“Ay,” said Tammock thoughtfully, “ye nearly brak’ my heart when I was the grieve at the Folds, an’ cam’ owre in the forenichts to coort ye. D’ye mind hoo ye used to sit on my knee, and I used to sing,

‘My love she’s but a lassie yet’?”

“I mind no siccan things,” said Mistress M’Quhirr. “Weel do ye ken that when ye cam’ aboot the mill I was but a wee toddlin’ bairn rinnin’ after the dyukes in the yaird. It’s like aneuch that I sat on your knee. I hae some mind o’ you haudin’ your muckle turnip watch to my lug for me to hear it tick.”