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“The way o’t was this,” began Tammock, putting a red doit of peat into the bowl of his pipe and squinting down at it with one eye shut to see that it glowed. “I had been payin’ my respects to Tibby up at the Hilltap off and on for a year or twa–“

“Maistly on,” said my wife. Tammock paid no attention.

“Tibby didna appear to mislike it to ony extent. She was fond o’ caa’in’ the crack, an’ I was wullin’ that she should miscaa’ me as muckle as she likit–for I’m no’ yin o’ your crouse, conceity young chaps to be fleyed awa’ wi’ a gibe frae a lassie.”

“Ye never war that a’ the days o’ ye, Tammock!” said the mistress.

“Ay, ye are beginnin’ to mind noo, mistress,” said Tammas dryly. “Weel, the nicht afore last I gaed to the Hilltap to see Tibby, an’ as usual there was a lad or twa in the kitchen, an’ the crack was gaun screevin’ roond. But I can tak’ my share in that,” continued Tammas modestly, “so we fell on to the banter.

“Tibby was knitting at a reid pirnie[1] for her faither; but, of course, I let on that it was for her guidman, and wanted her to tak’ the size o’ my held so that she micht mak’ it richt.

[Footnote 1: Night-cap.]

“‘It’ll never be on the pow o’ an Ayrshire drover,’ says she, snell as the north wind.

“‘An’ what for that?’ says I.

“‘The yairn ‘s owre dear,’ says Tibby. ‘It cost twa baskets o’ mushrooms in Dumfries market!’

“‘An’ what price paid ye for the mushrooms that the airn should be owre dear?’ said I.

“‘Ou, nocht ava,’ says Tibby. ‘I juist gat them whaur the Ayrshire drover gat the coo. I fand them in a field!’

“Then everybody haa-haa ed with laughing. She had me there, I wull alloo–me that had been a drover,” said Tammas Thackanraip.

“But that was naething to discourage ye, Tammock,” said I. “That was juist her bit joke.”

“I ken–I ken,” said Tammock; “but hand a wee–I’m no’ dune yet. So after they had dune laughin’, I telled them o’ the last man that was hangit at the Grassmarket o’ Edinburgh. There was three coonts in the dittay against him: first, that he was fand on the king’s highway withoot due cause; second, he wan’ered in his speech; and, thirdly, he owned that he cam’ frae Gallowa’.

“This kind o’ squared the reckoning, but it hadna the success o’ the Ayrshireman and the coo, for they a’ belonged to Gallowa’ that was in the kitchen,”

“‘Deed, an’ I dinna see muckle joke in that last mysel’,” said my wife, who also belonged to Galloway.

“And I’ll be bound neither did the poor lad in the Grassmarket!” I put in, edgeways, taking my legs down off the jambs, for the peats had burned up, and enough is as good as a feast.

Then Tammas was silent for a good while, smoking slowly, taking out his pipe whiles and looking at the shank of it in a very curious manner.

I knew that we were coming to the kernel of the story now.

“So the nicht slippit on,” continued the narrator, “an’ the lads that had to be early up in the morning gaed awa yin by yin, an’ I was left my lane wi’ Tibby. She was gaun aboot here an’ there gey an’ brisk, clatterin’ dishes an’ reddin’ corners.

“‘Hae a paper an’ read us some o’ the news, gin ye hae nocht better to say,’ said she.

“She threw me a paper across the table that I kenned for Maxwell’s by the crunkle o’ the sheets.

“I ripit a’ my pooches, yin after the ither.

“‘I misdoot I maun hae comed awa’ withoot my specs, Tibby,’ says I at last, when I could come on them nowhere.

“So we talked a bit langer, and she screeved aboot, pittin’ things into their places.

“‘It’s a fine nicht for gettin’ hame,’ she says, at the hinder end.

“This was, as ye may say, something like a hint, but I was determined to hae it oot wi’ her that nicht. An’ so I had, though no’ in the way I had intended exactly.

“‘It is a fine nicht,’ says I; ‘but I ken by the pains in the sma’ o’ my back that it’s gaun to be a storm.’

“Wi’ that, as if a bee had stang’d her, Tibby cam’ to the ither side o’ the table frae whaur I was sittin’–as it micht be there–an’ she set her hands on the edge o’t wi’ the loofs doon (I think I see her noo; she looked awsome bonny), an’ says she–

“‘Tammas Thackanraip, ye are a decent man, but ye are wasting your time comin’ here coortin’ me,’ she says. ‘Gin ye think that Tibby o’ the Hilltap is gaun to marry a man wi’ his een in his pooch an’ a weather-glass in the sma’ o’ his back, ye’re maist notoriously mista’en,’ says she.”

There was silence in the kitchen after that, so that we could hear the clock ticking time about with my wife’s needles.

“So I cam’ awa’,” at last said Tammock, sadly.

“An’ what hae ye dune aboot it?” asked my wife, sympathetically.

“Dune aboot it?” said Tammas; “I juist speered Bell Mulwhulter when I cam’ hame.”

“An’ what said she?” asked the mistress.

“Oh,” cried Tammas, “she said it was raither near the eleeventh ‘oor, but that she had nae objections that she kenned o’.”