not bide not being
answered. Even if she has a _grooin_' in her back, and remarks
"_Ateeshoo-oo!_" ye are bound for the sake of peace to put the question,
"What ails ye, guidwife?"

"I'll never believe that the minister smokes. He never has the gliff o'
it aboot him when he comes here."

"That's the cunnin' o' the body," said I. "He kens wha he's comin' to
see, an' he juist cuittles ye till ye gang aboot the hoose like Pussy
Bawdrons that has been strokit afore the fire, wi' your tail wavin' owre
your back."

"Think shame o' yoursel', Saunders M'Quhirr--you an elder and a man on
in years, to speak that gate."

"Gae wa' wi' ye, Mary M'Quhirr," I said. "Do ye think me sae auld? There
was but forty-aught hours and twenty meenits atween oor first scraichs
in this warld. That's no' aneuch to set ye up to sic an extent, that ye
can afford to gang aboot the hoose castin' up my age to me. There's mony
an aulder man lookin' for his second wife."

And with that, before my wife had time to think on a rouser of a reply
(I saw it in her eye, but it had not time to come away), Thomas
Thackanraip hirpled in. Thomas came from Ayrshire near forty years
since, and has been called Tammock the Ayrshireman ever since. He was
now a hearty-like man with a cottage of his own, and a cheery way with
him that made him a welcome guest at all the neighbouring farmhouses, as
he was at ours. The humours of Tammock were often the latest thing in
the countryside. He was not in the least averse to a joke against
himself, and that, I think, was the reason of a good deal of his
popularity. He went generally with his hand in the small of his back, as
if he were keeping the machinery in position while he walked. But he had
a curious young-like way with him for so old a man, and was for ever
_pook-pook_ing at the lasses wherever he went.

"Guid e'en to ye, mistress; hoo's a' at Drumquhat the nicht?" says
Tammock.

"Come your ways by, an' tak' a seat by the fire, Tammock; it's no' a
kindly nicht for auld banes," says the wife.

"Ay, guidwife, 'deed and I sympathise wi' ye," says Tammock. "It's what
we maun a' come to some day."

"Doitered auld body!" exclaimed my wife, "did ye think I was meanin'
mysel'?"

"Wha else?" said Tammock, reaching forward to get a light for his pipe
from the hearth where a little glowing knot had fallen, puffing out
sappy wheezes as it burned. He looked slyly up at the mistress as he did
so.

"Tammock," said she, sta