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Ye'll mind the closed-in beds i' the kitchen? Ay, weel, they're a fell spoilt crew, T'nowhead's litlins, an' no that aisy to manage. Th' ither lasses Lisbeth's hae'n had a michty trouble wi' them. When they war i' the middle o' their reddin' up the bairns wid come tumlin' about the floor, but, sal, I assure ye, Bell didna fash lang wi' them. Did she, Sam'l?"
"Ou, it's no naething," Tibbie said, "he's lyin' rale quiet." Then she went up to the attic. Hendry was not in the house. She opened the door gently and stole out. It was not snowing, but there had been a heavy fall two days before, and the night was windy. A tearing gale had blown the upper part of the brae clear, and from T'nowhead's fields the snow was rising like smoke.
His loom was doon at T'nowhead's Bell's father's, an' often he cam awa up to see if I was ony better. He didna lat on to the other weavers 'at he was comin' to see what like I was. Na, he juist said he'd forgotten a pirn, or his cruizey lamp, or ony thing. Ah, but he didna mak nae pretence o' no carin' for me aince he was inside the hoose.
He began to wonder if he were too late, and had he seen his opportunity would have told Bell of a nasty rumor that Sanders intended to go over to the Free Church if they would make him kirk-officer. Sam'l had the good-will of T'nowhead's wife, who liked a polite man. Sanders did his best, but from want of practice he constantly made mistakes.
The magazines, Scotch and English, would have nothing to say to me I think I tried them all with "The Courting of T'nowhead's Bell," but it never found shelter until it got within book-covers. He revived my drooping hopes, and I was again able to turn to the only kind of literary work I now seemed to have much interest in.
But whether his thoughts were of T'nowhead's Bell, whom he had lost for ever, or of the food the farmer fed his pig on, is not known. "Lord preserve 's! are ye no at the kirk?" cried Bell, nearly dropping the baby as Sam'l broke into the room. "Bell!" cried Sam'l. Then T'nowhead's Bell knew that her hour had come. "Sam'l," she faltered.
'Adam, says he, 'was an erring man, but aside Eve he was respectable." "Ay, but it wasna a' women he meant," Elspeth explained, "for when he said that, he pointed his finger direct at T'nowhead's lassie, and I hope it'll do her good." "But I wonder," I said, "that Mr. Dishart chose such a subject to- day. I thought he would be on the riot at both services."
It was a fateful Sabbath for T'nowhead's Bell and her swains, and destined to be remembered for the painful scandal which they perpetrated in their passion. Bell was not in the kirk.
We were all sitting on the pig-sty at T'NOWHEAD'S Farm. A pig-sty is not, perhaps, a strictly eligible seat, but there were special reasons, of which you shall hear something later, for sitting on this particular pig-sty. The old sow was within, extended at full length. Occasionally she grunted approval of what was said, but, beyond that, she seemed to show but a faint interest in the proceedings.
"It's a' that," said Sanders, "but I'm willin' to stan' the risk." So, as soon as it could be done, Sanders Elshioner took to wife T'nowhead's Bell, and I remember seeing Sam'l Dickie trying to dance at the penny wedding. Years afterward it was said in Thrums that Sam'l had treated Bell badly, but he was never sure about it himself.
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