fe than had been granted to Sammy, his father.

It was Saturday evening--the night in the week when Auld Licht young men
fell in love. Sam'l Dickie, wearing a blue Glengarry bonnet with a red
ball on the top, came to the door of a one-story house in the Tenements,
and stood there wriggling, for he was in a suit of tweeds for the first
time that week, and did not feel at one with them. When his feeling of
being a stranger to himself wore off, he looked up and down the road,
which straggles between houses and gardens, and then, picking his way
over the puddles, crossed to his father's hen-house and sat down on it.
He was now on his way to the square.

Eppie Fargus was sitting on an adjoining dike, knitting stockings, and
Sam'l looked at her for a time.

"Is't yersel, Eppie?" he said at last.

"It's a' that," said Eppie.

"Hoo's a' wi' ye?" asked Sam'l.

"We're juist aff an' on," replied Eppie, cautiously.

There was not much more to say, but as Sam'l sidled off the hen-house,
he murmured politely, "Ay, ay." In another minute he would have been
fairly started, but Eppie resumed the conversation.

"Sam'l," she said, with a twinkle in her eye, "ye can tell Lisbeth
Fargus I'll likely be drappin' in on her aboot Munday or Teisday."

Lisbeth was sister to Eppie, and wife of Thomas McQuhatty, better known
as T'nowhead, which was the name of his farm. She was thus
Bell's mistress.

Sam'l leaned against the hen-house, as if all his desire to depart had
gone.

"Hoo d'ye kin I'll be at the T'nowhead the nicht?" he asked, grinning in
anticipation.

"Ou, I'se warrant ye'll be after Bell," said Eppie.

"Am no sae sure o' that," said Sam'l, trying to leer. He was enjoying
himself now.

"Am no sure o' that," he repeated, for Eppie seemed lost in stitches.

"Sam'l?"

"Ay."

"Ye'll be speirin' her sune noo, I dinna doot?"

This took Sam'l, who had only been courting Bell for a year or two, a
little aback.

"Hoo d'ye mean, Eppie?" he asked.

"Maybe ye'll do't the nicht."

"Na, there's nae hurry," said Sam'l.

"Weel, we're a' coontin' on't, Sam'l."

"Gae wa wi' ye."

"What for no?"

"Gae wa wi' ye," said Sam'l again.

"Bell's gei an' fond o' ye, Sam'l."

"Ay," said Sam'l.

"But am dootin' ye're a fell billy wi' the lasses."

"Ay, oh, I d'na kin, moderate, moderate," said Sam'l, in high delight.

"I saw ye," said Eppie, speaking with a wire in her mouth, "gaen on
terr'ble wi' Mysy Haggart at the pump