your tea noo, an' haud your lang tongue."

"Ow, weel-a-weel," says Sandy, gey dour-like--he's as bucksturdie as a
mule when he tak's't in's heid--"but we're no' deid yet, an' we'll
mibby manish to garr some fowk winder yet, when a's dune. What's been
dune afore can be dune again; the speerit o' Bannockburn's no' de'ed
oot a'thegither."

But I left the cratur chatterin' awa' till himsel', an' ran but to sair
some fowk i' the shop. Did you ever hear o' sic a man? Dauvid Kenawee
says Sandy's a kind o' a sinnyquanon; an' it's my opeenyin he's no'
very far wrang, whatever that may mean.

As I was sayin', there's nae fules like auld fules. I put oot
twa-three bits o' things on the green on Setarday forenune, an' I
forgot a' aboot them till efter the shop was shut. It wud be nearhand
twal o'clock when I ran doon for them. It was a fine nicht, but
dreidfu' cauld. Juist as I was gaitherin' up the twa-three bit duds, I
heard voices ower the dyke, an' I cudna but harken to see wha wud be
oot at that time o' nicht. Fancy what I thocht when I heard Beek
Steein's voice, that bides in Mistress Mollison's garret, sayin', "Eh,
ay, Jeemie; it's an awfu' thing luve. I hinna steekit 'an e'e for twa
nichts thinkin' aboot ye."

Preserve's a', thinks I to mysel', this is Ribekka an' Jeems Ethart,
the engine-driver. Jeems is a weeda man, an' Ribekka's like me, she's
on the wrang side o' forty; but, faigs, on Setarday nicht you wudda
thocht they were baith aboot five-an'-twenty.

"My bonnie dooie," I heard Jeems say. A gey dooie, I says to mysel'.
There's twal steen o' her, if there's a pund. It wud tak' a gey pair
o' weengs to cairry Ribekka, I tell ye.

"A'ye genna gie's a kiss, Ribekka?" Jeems says after a whilie; an'
Ribekka gae a bit geegle, an' then whispers laich in, "Help yoursel',
Jeemie"--an' there they were at it like twa young anes.

I didna ken whuther to flee up the yaird, roar oot "feyre," or clim' up
on the dyke an' gie them a wallop roond the linders wi' my bits o'
cloots. So I stud still.

The fient a ane o' them ever thocht there was a livin' sowl within
fifty yairds o' them, an' they were crackin' an' kirrooin' awa' like a
pair o' doos.

"Isn't a peety they dinna ca' me Izik?" says Jeems.

"Hoo d'ye think that?" said Ribekka.

"Cause it wudda lookit so fine--Izik an' Ribekka, d'ye see?" an' they
nickered an' leuch like a' that.

"An' I wudda been Ribekka at the wall," said Beek.

"Exackly," said