vitably appointed porter. There was no travelling to
Thrums without a ticket. At Tilliedrum, which was the junction for
Thrums, you showed your ticket and were then locked in. A hundred
yards from Thrums. Corp leaped upon the train and fiercely demanded
your ticket. At the station he asked you threateningly whether you had
given up your ticket. Even his wife was afraid of him at such times,
and had her ticket ready in her hand.

His wife was one Gavinia, and she had no fear of him except when she
was travelling. To his face she referred to him as a doited sumph, but
to Grizel pleading for him she admitted that despite his warts and
quarrelsome legs he was a great big muckle sonsy, stout, buirdly well
set up, wise-like, havering man. When first Corp had proposed to her,
she gave him a clout on the head; and so little did he know of the sex
that this discouraged him. He continued, however, to propose and she
to clout him until he heard, accidentally (he woke up in church), of a
man in the Bible who had wooed a woman for seven years, and this
example he determined to emulate; but when Gavinia heard of it she
was so furious that she took him at once. Dazed by his good fortune,
he rushed off with it to his aunt, whom he wearied with his repetition
of the great news.

"To your bed wi' you," she said, yawning.

"Bed!" cried Corp, indignantly. "And so, auntie, says Gavinia, 'Yes,'
says she, 'I'll hae you.' Those were her never-to-be-forgotten words."

"You pitiful object," answered his aunt. "Men hae been married afore
now without making sic a stramash."

"I daursay," retorted Corp; "but they hinna married Gavinia." And this
is the best known answer to the sneer of the cynic.

He was a public nuisance that night, and knocked various people up
after they had gone to bed, to tell them that Gavinia was to have him.
He was eventually led home by kindly though indignant neighbours; but
early morning found him in the country, carrying the news from farm to
farm.

"No, I winna sit down," he said; "I just cried in to tell you Gavinia
is to hae me." Six miles from home he saw a mud house on the top of a
hill, and ascended genially. He found at their porridge a very old
lady with a nut-cracker face, and a small boy. We shall see them
again. "Auld wifie," said Corp, "I dinna ken you, but I've just
stepped up to tell you that Gavinia is to hae me."

It made him the butt of the sportive. If he or Gavinia were nigh, they
gathered t