Chapter 29
1971 Words
"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 c****d 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.
"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[4] 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 4: 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'."
IV
THE OLD TORY
_One man alone, Amid the general consent of tongues. For his point's sake bore his point-- Then, unrepenting, died_.
The first time I ever saw the Old Tory, he was scurrying down the street of the Radical village where he lived, with a score of men after him. Clods and stones were flying, and the Old Tory had his hand up to protect his head. Yet ever as he fled, he turned him about to cry an epithet injurious to the good name of some great Radical leader. It was a time when the political atmosphere was prickly with electricity, and men's passions easily flared up--specially the passions of those who had nothing whatever to do with the matter.
The Old Tory was the man to enjoy a time like that. On the day before the election he set a banner on his chimney which he called "the right yellow," which flaunted bravely all day so long as David Armitt, the Old Tory, sat at his door busking salmon hooks, with a loaded blunderbuss at his elbow and grim determination in the c**k of one shaggy grey eyebrow.
But at night, when all was quiet under the Dullarg stars, Jamie Wardhaugh and three brave spirits climbed to the rigging of the Old Tory's house, tore down his yellow flag, thrust the staff down the chimney, and set a slate across the aperture.
Then they climbed down and proceeded to complete their ploy. Jamie Wardhaugh proposed that they should tie the yellow flag to the pig's tail in derision of the Old Tory and his Toryism. It was indeed a happy thought, and would make them the talk of the village upon election day. They would set the decorated pig on the dyke to see the Tory candidate's carriage roll past in the early morning.
They were indeed the talk of the village; but, alas! the thing itself did not quite fall out as they had anticipated. For, while they were bent in a cluster within the narrow, slippery quadrangle of the pig-sty, and just as Jamie Wardhaugh sprawled on his knees to catch the slumbering inmate by the hind-leg, they were suddenly hailed in a deep, quiet voice--the voice of the Old Tory.
"Bide ye whaur ye are, lads--ye will do bravely there. I hae Mons Meg on ye, fu' to the bell wi' slugs, and she is the boy to scatter. It was kind o' ye to come and see to the repairing o' my bit hoose an' the comfort o' my bit swine. Ay, kind it was--an' I tak' it weel. Ye see, lads, my wife Meg wull no let me sleep i' the hoose at election times, for Meg is a reid-headed Radical besom--sae I e'en tak' up my quarters i' the t'ither end o' the swine-ree, whaur the auld sow died oot o'."
The men appeared ready to make a break for liberty, but the bell-mouth of Mons Meg deterred them.
"It's a fine nicht for the time o' year, Davit!" at last said Jamie Wardhaugh. "An' a nice bit pig. Ye hae muckle credit o't!"
"Ay," said David Armitt, "'deed, an' ye are richt. It's a sonsy bit swine."
"We'll hae to be sayin' guid-nicht, Davit!" at last said Jamie Wardhaugh, rather limply.
"Na, na, lads. It's but lanesome oot here--an' the morn's election day. We'll e'en see it in thegither. I see that ye hae a swatch o' the guid colour there. That's braw! Noo, there's aneuch o't for us a', Jamie; divide it intil five! Noo, pit ilka yin o' ye a bit in his bonnet!"
- Writer
