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“Aweel, aweel, Mary,” he said placably, “it’s like aneuch that was it. Thae auld times are apt to get a kennin’ mixter-maxter in yin’s held.”

We got little more out of him till once the bairns were shooed off to their beds, and the wife had been in three times at them with the broad of her loof to make them behave themselves. But ultimately Tammock Thackanraip agreed to spend the night with us. I saw that he wanted to open out something by ourselves, after the kitchen was clear and the men off to the stable.

So on the back of nine we took the book, and then drew round the red glow of the fire in the kitchen. It is the only time in the day that the mistress allows me to put my feet on the jambs, which is the only way that a man can get right warmed up, from foundation to rigging, as one might say. In this position we waited for Tammock to begin–or rather I waited, for the wife sat quietly in the corner knitting her stocking.

“I was thinkin’ o’ takin’ a wife gin I could get a guid, faceable-like yin,” said Tammock, thumbing the dottle down.

“Ay?” said I, and waited.

“Ye see, I’m no’ as young as I yince was, and I need somebody sair.”

“But I thocht aye that ye were lookin’ at Tibby o’ the Hilltap,” said the mistress.

“I was,” said Thomas sententiously. He stroked his leg with one hand softly, as though it had been a cat’s back.

Now, Tibby o’ the Hilltap was the farmer’s daughter, a belle among the bachelors, but one who had let so many lads pass her by, that she was thought to be in danger of missing a down-sefting after all. But Tammock had long been faithful.

“I’ll gang nae mair to yon toun,” said Tammock.

“Hoots, haivers!” (this was Mistress M’Quhirr’s favourite expression); “an’ what for no’? What said she, Tammock, to turn you frae the Hilltap?”

“She said what settled me,” said Tammock a little sadly. “I’m thinkin’ there’s nocht left for’t but to tak’ Bell Mulwhulter, that has been my housekeeper, as ye ken, for twenty year. But gin I do mak’ up my mind to that, it’ll be a heartbreak that I didna do it twenty year since. It wad hae saved expense.”

“‘Deed, I’m nane so sure o’ that,” said the goodwife, listening with one ear cocked to the muffled laughter in the boys’ sleeping-room.

“Thae loons are no’ asleep yet,” said she, lifting an old flat-heeled slipper and disappearing.

There was a sharp slap-slapping for a minute, mixed with cries of “Oh, mither, it was Alec!” “No, mither, it was Rob!”

Mary appeared at the door presently, breathing as she did when she had half done with the kirning. She set the slipper in the corner to be ready to her hand in case of further need.

“Na, na, Ayrshireman,” she said; “it’s maybe time aneuch as it is for you to marry Bell Mulwhulter. It’s sma’ savin’ o’ expense to bring up a rachle o’ bairns.”

“Dod, woman, I never thocht a’ that,” said Tammock. “It’s maybe as weel as it is.”

“Ay, better a deal. Let weel alane,” said the mistress.

“I doot I’ll hae to do that ony way noo,” said Tammock.

“But what said Tibby o’ the Hilltap to ye, Tammock, that ye gied up thochts o’ her sae sudden-like?”

“Na, I can tell that to naebody,” he said at last.

“Hoots, haivers!” said the wife, who wanted very much to know. “Ye ken that it’ll gang nae farder.”

“Aweel,” said Tammock, “I’ll tell ye.”

And this he had intended to do from the first, as we knew, and he knew that we knew it. But the rules of the game had to be observed. There was something of a woman’s round-the-corner ways about Tammock all his days, and that was the way he got on so well with them as a general rule–though Tibby o’ the Hilltap had given him the go-by, as we were presently to hear.