Project Gutenberg's Stories by English Authors: Scotland, by Various

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Title: Stories by English Authors: Scotland

Author: Various

Release Date: April 3, 2006 [EBook #2588]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS: ***

Produced by Dagny; Emma Dudding; John Bickers

STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS

SCOTLAND

CONTENTS

The Courting of T'nowhead's Bell J. M. Barrie
"The Heather Lintie" S. R. Crockett
A Doctor of the Old School Ian Maclaren
Wandering Willie's Tale Sir Walter Scott
The Glenmutchkin Railway Professor Aytoun
Thrawn Janet R. L. Stevenson

THE COURTING OF T'NOWHEAD'S BELL, By J. M. Barrie

For two years it had been notorious in the square that Sam'l Dickie
was thinking of courting T'nowhead's Bell, and that if Little Sanders
Elshioner (which is the Thrums pronunciation of Alexander Alexander)
went in for her, he might prove a formidable rival. Sam'l was a weaver
in the tenements, and Sanders a coal-carter, whose trade-mark was a bell
on his horse's neck that told when coal was coming. Being something of
a public man, Sanders had not, perhaps, so high a social position as
Sam'l, but he had succeeded his father on the coal-cart, while the
weaver had already tried several trades. It had always been against
Sam'l, too, that once when the kirk was vacant he had advised the
selection of the third minister who preached for it on the ground that
it became expensive to pay a large number of candidates. The scandal
of the thing was hushed up, out of respect for his father, who was a
God-fearing man, but Sam'l was known by it in Lang Tammas's circle.
The coal-carter was called Little Sanders to distinguish him from his
father, who was not much more than half his size. He had grown up with
the name, and its inapplicability now came home to nobody. Sam'l's
mother had been more far-seeing than Sanders's. Her man had been called
Sammy all his life because it was the name he got as a boy, so when
their eldest son was born she spoke of him as Sa