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Sanders took in the situation and gave in at once. The last hundred yards of the distance he covered at his leisure, and when he arrived at his destination he did not go in. It was a fine afternoon for the time of year, and he went round to have a look at the pig, about which T'nowhead was a little sinfully puffed up.
I sat still i' the cart, an' when he was far awa he stoppit an' lookit again, but a' my cryin' wouldna bring him a step back, an' i' the end I drove on. I've thocht since syne 'at he didna ken whether his fowk was livin' or deid, an' was fleid to speir." "He didna ken," said T'nowhead, "but the faut was his ain. It's ower late to be ta'en up aboot Jess noo."
"Mary was spunky as weel as a beauty," said Hookey, "an' that's the kind I like. Lads, what a persuasive tid she was!" "She got roond the men," said Hendry, "ay, she turned them roond her finger. That's the warst o' thae beauties." "I dinna gainsay," said T'nowhead, "but what there was a little o' the deevil in Mary, the crittur." Here T'nowhead chuckled, and then looked scared.
"I may be, Pete," Tammas admitted; "but I maun say I'm fond o' a bonny-looken wuman, an' no aisy to please; na, I'm nat'rally ane o' the critical kind." "It's extror'nar," said T'nowhead, "what a poo'er beauty has. I mind when I was a callant readin' aboot Mary Queen o' Scots till I was fair mad, lads; yes, I was fair mad at her bein' deid. Ou, I could hardly sleep at nichts for thinking o' her."
I wouldna wonder but what it was some laddies 'at set them at ane another. "Hendry doesna see what Miltydes was after," said T'nowhead. "Ye've taen't up wrang, Hendry," Tammas explained. "What Miltiades meant was 'at if cocks could fecht sae weel oot o' mere deviltry, surely the Greeks would fecht terrible for their gods an' their bairns an' the other things."
He asked Bell questions out of his own head, which was beyond Sam'l, and once he said something to her in such a low voice that the others could not catch it. T'nowhead asked curiously what it was, and Sanders explained that he had only said, "Ay, Bell, the morn's the Sabbath." There was nothing startling in this, but Sam'l did not like it.
The potatoes were burning, and T'nowhead had an invitation on his tongue. "Yes, I'll hae to be movin'," said Sanders, hopelessly, for the fifth time. "Guid nicht to ye, then, Sanders," said Lisbeth. "Gie the door a fling-to, ahent ye." Sanders, with a mighty effort, pulled himself together. He looked boldly at Bell, and then took off his hat carefully.
"Hoo d' ye kin I'll be at the T'nowhead the nicht?" he asked, grinning in anticipation. "Ou, I'se warrant ye'll be after Bell," said Eppie. "Am no sae sure o' that," said Sam'l, trying to leer. He was enjoying himself now. "Am no sure o' that," he repeated, for Eppie seemed lost in stitches. "Sam'l!" "Ay." "Ye'll be speerin' her sune noo, I dinna doot?"
In a case of this kind it does not much matter what T'nowhead thought. The ten minutes had barely passed when Sam'l was back in the farm kitchen. He was too flurried to knock this time, and, indeed, Lisbeth did not expect it of him. "Bell, hae!" he cried, handing his sweetheart a tinsel bag twice the size of Sanders's gift.
Every Saturday old Robbie Angus sent a bag of sticks and shavings from the saw-mill by his little son Rob, who was afterwards to become a man for speaking about at nights. Of all the friends that Jess and Hendry had, T'nowhead was the ablest to help, and the sweetest memory I have of the farmer and his wife is the delicate way they offered it.
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