"I said a smile," continued Tammas. "Then there's her waist. I say naething agin her waist, speakin' in the ord'nar meanin'; but, conseedered critically, there's a want o' suppleness, as ye micht say, aboot it. Ay, it doesna compare wi' the waist o' ----" (Here Tammas mentioned a young lady who had recently married into a local county family.) "That was a pretty tiddy," said Hookey, "Ou, losh, ay! it made me a kind o' queery to look at her." "Ye're ower kyowowy (particular), Tammas," said Pete. "I may be, Pete," Tammas admitted; "but I maun say I'm fond o' a bonny-looken wuman, an' no aisy to please; na, I'm nat'rally ane o' the critical kind." "It's extror'nar," said T'nowhead, "what a poo'er beauty has. I mind when I was a callant readin' aboot Mary Queen o' Scots till I was fair mad, lads; yes, I was fair mad at her bein' deid. Ou, I could hardly sleep at nichts for thinking o' her." "Mary was spunky as weel as a beauty," said Hookey, "an' that's the kind I like. Lads, what a persuasive tid she was!" "She got roond the men," said Hendry, "ay, she turned them roond her finger. That's the warst o' thae beauties." "I dinna gainsay," said T'nowhead, "but what there was a little o' the deevil in Mary, the crittur." Here T'nowhead chuckled, and then looked scared. "What Mary needed," said Tammas, "was a strong man to manage her." "Ay, man, but it's ill to manage thae beauties. They gie ye a glint o' their een, an' syne whaur are ye?" "Ah, they can be managed," said Tammas, complacently. "There's naebody nat'rally safter wi' a pretty stocky o' a bit wumany than mysel; but for a' that, if I had been Mary's man I would hae stood nane o' her tantrums. 'Na, Mary, my lass,' I would hae said, 'this winna do; na, na, ye're a bonny body, but ye maun mind 'at man's the superior; ay, man's the lord o' creation, an' so ye maun juist sing sma'.' That's hoo I would hae managed Mary, the speerity crittur 'at she was." "Ye would hae haen yer wark cut oot for ye, Tammas." "Ilka mornin'," pursued Tammas, "I would hae said to her, 'Mary,' I would hae said, 'wha's to wear thae breeks the day, you or me?' Ay, syne I would hae ordered her to kindle the fire, or if I had been the king, of coorse I would hae telt her instead to ring the bell an' hae the cloth laid for the breakfast. Ay, that's the wy to mak the like o' Mary respec ye." Pete and I left them talking. He had written a letter to David Alexander, and wanted me to "back" it. CHAPTER X A MAGNUM OPUS Two Bibles, a volume of sermons by the learned Dr. Isaac Barrow, a few numbers of the _Cheap Magazine_, that had strayed from Dunfermline, and a "Pilgrim's Progress," were the works that lay conspicuous ben in the room. Hendry had also a copy of Burns, whom he always quoted in the complete poem, and a collection of legends in song and prose, that Leeby kept out of sight in a drawer.