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He had lang white hair, an' a saft bonny face 'at would hae made 'im respeckit by onybody, an' aye when we speired if he wasna fleid to be left alane, he said, 'Them 'at has a clear conscience has naething to fear frae ghosts.
He tried to get in last nicht, and roared threats through the door, and after he had gone awa she speired wha I had been speaking to. I had to tell her, but I said he had come to let her ken that the minister was taking shelter frae the rain in a farmhouse. Ay, I said he was to bide there till the flood gaed down, and that's how she has been easy a day.
"Why, no!" she said, answering his question as to whether or no he had not acted a bit foolish the night before. "You just speired me to marry on you. Said I'd been in your eye this thirty years." In a sense this was true. He had cleared from her path like a bolting rabbit, but gallantry forbade that manifest explanation. "'Twas the whuskey talking," he pleaded.
He was standin' at the gate, which, as a'body kens, is but sax steps frae the hoose, an' I wondered at 'im neither runnin' awa nor comin' forrit. I speired at 'im what he meant by terrifyin' a bairn, but he didna say naething. He juist stood. It was ower dark to see his face richt, an' I wasna nane ta'en aback yet, no till he spoke. Oh, but he had a fearsome word when he did speak.
I speired her mysell, and she says young Gourlay has a black eye." "Ay, ay; there'th thmall hope for the Gourlayth in him!" said the Deacon. "How do you ken?" cried the baker.
But where, I asked, was the glove hid. "I ken nae mair than yersel," said Leeby. "My mother's gien to hoddin' things. I speired at her whaur she had hod it, but she juist said, 'What would I be doin' hoddin't'? She'll never admit to me 'at she hods the siller either." Next day Leeby came to me with the latest news. "He's found it," she said, "ay, he's got the glove again.
Godsake, woman, let me away; there's saxpence t' ye to buy half a mutchkin, instead o' clavering about thae auld-warld stories. 'Thanks to ye, gudeman; and now ye hae answered a' my questions, and never speired wherefore I asked them, I'll gie you a bit canny advice, and ye maunna speir what for neither. Tib Mumps will be out wi' the stirrup-dram in a gliffing.
I asked him if anybody had been around making inquiries subsequent to my spell at the road-making. 'Ay, there was a man in a motor-cawr. He speired whae had ta'en my place that day, and I let on I thocht him daft.
At last our visitor broke into an agitated whisper, and it was only when she stopped whispering, as she did now and again, that I ceased to hear her. "Though I should be struck deid this nicht," Tibbie whispered, and the sibilants hissed between her few remaining teeth, "I wasna sae muckle as speired to the layin' oot.
Jeames was generous; indeed he had come home with the intention of scattering largess. A beggar met him one day on the brae, and got a shilling from him. She was waving her arms triumphantly as she passed Hendry's house, and Leeby got the story from her. "Eh, he's a fine man that, an' a saft ane," the woman said. "I juist speired at 'im hoo his bonny wife was, an' he oot wi' a shillin'!"
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