"Dunnet gowl, Aggy. Mappen I'll be maister man mysel' soon." Aggy pushed her way through the crowd and disappeared. "She's packed him off wi' a flea in his ear," said an elderly man standing near. "Just like all the lave of them," said another, "snurling up her neb at a man for lack of gear. Why didna he brag of some rich uncle in Austrilly?" "Ey, and stuff her with all sorts of flaitchment and lies. Then all the lasses wad be glyming at him." The dance spun on. "Why, it's a regular upshot, as good as Carel fair," said one of the girls. "Bessie, you're reet clipt and heeled for sure," responded her companion. Bessie's eyes sparkled with delight at the lusty compliment paid to her dancing, and she opened her cloak to cool herself, and also to show the glittering locket that hung about her neck. "It's famish, this fashion," muttered the elderly cynic. "It must tak' a brave canny fortune." "Shaf, man, the country's puzzen'd round with pride," answered his gossip. "Lasses worked in the old days. Now they never do a hand's turn but washin' and bleachin' and starchin' and curlin' their polls." "Ey, ey, there's been na luck in the country since the women-folk began to think shame of their wark." The fiddler made a squeak on two notes that sounded like kiss-her, and from a corner of the booth there came a clamorous smack of lips. "I saw you sweetheartin' laal Bessie," said one of the fellows to another. "And I saw you last night cutteran sa soft in the meadow. Nay, dunnot look sa strange. I never say nowt, not I. Only yon mother of Aggy's, she's a famous fratcher, and dunnot you let her get wind. She brays the lasses, and mappen she'll bray somebody forby." While the dancing proceeded there was a noisy clatter of glasses and a mutter of voices in the neighborhood of the bar. "The varra crony one's fidgin to see! Gie us a shak' of thy daddle!" shouted a fellow with a face like a russet apple. "Come, Dick, let's bottom a quart together. Deil tak' the expense." "Why, man, and wherever hasta been since Whissen Monday?" "Weel, you see, I went to the fair and stood with a straw in my mouth, and the wives all came round, and one of them said, 'What wage do you ask, canny lad?' 'Five pounds ten,' I says. 'And what can you do?' she says. 'Do?' I says, 'anything from plowing to threshing and nicking a nag's tail,' I says. 'Come, be my man,' she says. But she was like to clem me, so I packed up my bits of duds and got my wage in my reet-hand breek pocket, and here I am." The dancing had finished, and a little group was gathered around the fiddler's tub. "Come thy ways; here's Tom o' Dint conjuring, and telling folk what they are thinking." "That's mair nor he could do for the numskulls as never think." "He bangs all the player-folk, does Tom." "Who's yon tatterdemalion flinging by the newspaper and bawling, 'The country's going to the dogs?'" "That's Grey Graham, setting folk by the lug with his blusteration."