e putten aboot, wi'
her wey o't.

"Better sit still than rise up an' fa'," said Mysie. "Gin I were
Ribekka I'd bide my leen. I wud like to see the man that wud tak' me
oot o' my present state."

"He wudna need to be very parteeklar," says I, juist to gie Mysie a
backca'; for she was sailin' gey near the wind, I thocht. "When I was
young," I says, says I----

"Auld wives were aye gude maidens," the Gairner's wife strak in; an' I
saw I was cornered, an' said nae mair.

"An' a weeda man too!" said Mysie wi' a grumph. "Better keep the deil
atower the door than drive him oot o' the hoose."

"'Saut,' quo the souter, when he ate the soo, an' worried on the tail,"
was the Gairner's wife's comment; an' Mysie didna like it, I can tell
ye.

"You wasna in that wey o' thinkin' when Dossie Millar, the skulemester,
used to come an' coort you, when you was up-by at the Provost's," said
Ribekka to Mysie. "If it hadna been for the lid o' the water-barrel
gien wey yon nicht, you michta been skelpin' Dossie's bairns the
day--an' your ain too."

We a' took a hearty lauch at Ribekka's ootburst.

"Eh, that was a pliskie," said Mistress Kenawee. "Dossie got a gey
drookin' that nicht. They said it was ane o' the coachmen that was
efter Mysie that sawed the lid half throo; an' when Dossie climbed up
to hae his crack wi' Mysie at the winda, in he gaed up to the lugs.
The story was that Mysie fair lost her chance wi' him, wi' burstin' oot
lauchin' when he climbed oot o' the barrel soakin'-dreepin' throo an'
throo. He never got ower't, for it got oot aboot, an' the very bairns
at the skule began to ca' him the Drookit Dominie. He got a job at the
Druckendub skule, an' never lookit Mysie's airt again."

"You're grand crackers," said Mysie. "Ye ken a hankie mair than ever
happened; but, the man that cheats me ance, shame fa' him; gin he cheat
me twice, shame fa' me. That's my wey o' lookin' at things."

This kind o' raggin' at ane anither gaed on for the feck o' the
forenicht, an' we were juist i' the thick o' a' tirr-wirr aboot the
best cure for the kink-host, when the doonstairs door gaed clash to the
wa', an' in anither meenit in banged Sandy in his sark sleeves, an' his
hair fleein' like a bundle o' ravelled threed.

"Michty tak' care o' me, Sandy," says I, I says; "what's happened?"

"Aye the mair the merrier, but the fewer they fess the better," says
Mistress Winton.

"Wha's been meddlin' wi' you, Sandy?"

But fien