“I’m no blamin’ ye,” he went on; “I ken I’m gey dreich company for onybody. I havena a heid for mindin’ ony scandal aboot the folk we ken, and I canna understaund politics noo that Gledstone’s no’ to the fore, and I danna sing, or play a tune on ony thing.” “Listen to him!” cried Jinnet. “Isn’t he the awfu’ man? Did ye ever hear the like o’ him for nonsense?” The kettle was on the fire: I knew from experience that it had been put there when my knock came to the door, for so the good lady’s hospitality always manifested itself, so that her kettle was off and on the fire a score of times a-day, ready to be brought to the boil if it was a visitor who knocked, and not a beggar or a pedlar of pipeclay. “Tak’ a watter biscuit,” Jinnet pressed me as we sat at the table; “they’re awfu’ nice wi’ saut butter.” “Hae ye nae syrup to put on them?” asked her husband with a sly glance. “Nane o’ yer nonsense,” she exclaimed, and attempted a diversion in the conversation, but Erchie plainly had a joke to retail. “I’ll tell ye a bawr aboot watter biscuits and syrup,” said he. “When I was coortin’ my first lass I wasna mair nor nineteen years o’ age, and jist a thin peely-wally callant, mair like playin’ moshy at the bools than rinnin’ efter lassies. The lassie’s faither and mither jist made fun o’ us, and when I wad be gaun up to her hoose, lettin’ on it was her brither I wanted to see, they used to affront me afore their dochter wi’ speakin’ aboot the Sunday-School and the Band o’ Hope I belanged to (because the lassie belanged to them tae), and askin’ me if I was fond o’ sugar to my parridge, and when I was thinkin’ o’ startin’ the shavin’. I didna like it, but I jist had to put up wi’t. But the worst blow ever I got frae them was yince when I gaed up wi’ a new pair o’ lavender breeks, and the lassie’s mither, for the fun o’ the thing, asked me if I wad hae a piece and jeely. I tellt her I wasna heedin’, that I was jist efter haein’ my tea; but she went and spread syrup on a watter biscuit and handed it to me the same as if I was a wee lauddie wi’ a grauvit on.” Jinnet laughed softly at the picture. “Oh, ye may lauch,” said her husband. “There was nae lauchin’ in my heid, I’m tellin’ ye. For there was the syrup comin’ dreepin’ through the holes in the watter biscuit, so that I had to haud the biscuit up every noo and then and lick in below’t so as to keep the syrup frae gaun on my braw lavender breeks. A bonny object for a lass to look at, and it was jist to mak’ me look reediculous her mither did it. She thocht I was faur ower young to be comin’ efter her dochter.” “So ye were,” said Jinnet. “I’m shair ye hadna muckle sense at the time, or it wadna be yon yin ye went coortin’.” “Maybe no’; but I never rued it,” said Erchie. “She was as glaikit as yersel’,” said Jinnet. “She was the cleverest, lass in the place,” protested Erchie. “My! the things she could sew, and crochet, and mak’ doon, and bake!”