LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 'J f\ n 
 Edited by E. Hald«man-Juliu8 %J\J £ 
 
 A Tillyloss Scandal 
 
 J. M. Barrie 
 
TEN CENT POCKET SERIES NO. 307 
 
 Edited by E. Haldeman- Julius 
 
 A Tiliyloss Scandal 
 
 J. M. Barrie 
 
 HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY 
 GIRARD, KANSAS 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
 
 http://archive.org/details/tillylossscandalObarr 
 
I INIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 vmsJ llllilllllllPl 
 
 (__ 00014381901 
 
 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IN WHICH WE APPROACH HAGGART, 
 HAT IN HAND. 
 
 According to those who have thought the 
 thing over, it would defy the face of clay to 
 set forth this prodigious affair of Tillyloss, 
 the upshot of which was that Tammas H-aggart 
 became a humorist. It happened so far back 
 as the Long Year, so called by reason of disease 
 in the potato crop; and doubtless the house, 
 which still stands, derides romance to those 
 who cavil at an outside stair. Furthermore, 
 the many who only knew Haggart in his later 
 years, whether personally or through written 
 matter or from Thrums folk who have traveled, 
 will not readily admit that he may once have 
 been an every-day man. There is also against 
 me the vexing practice of the farmer of Look- 
 aboutyou, who never passes Tillyloss, if there 
 is a friend of mine within earshot, without 
 saying: 
 
 "Gravestane or no gravestane, Tammas Hag- 
 gart would have been a humorist." 
 
4 A TILLY.LOSS SCANDAL 
 
 Lookaboutyou thus implies that he knew 
 Haggart for a man of parts when the rest of 
 us were blind, and it is tantalizing beyond 
 ordinary to see his word accepted in this matter 
 by people who would not pay him for a drill 
 of potatoes without first stepping it to make 
 sure of the length. 
 
 I have it from Tammas Haggart that until 
 the extraordinary incident occurred which I 
 propose telling as he dropped it into my mouth, 
 he was such a man as myself. True, he was 
 occasionally persuaded by persons of Look- 
 aboutyou's stamp to gloss over this admission, 
 as incredible on the face of it, but that was in 
 his last years, when he had become something 
 of a show, and was in a puzzle about himself. 
 Of the several reasons he gave me in proof of 
 a non-humorous period in his life the follow- 
 ing seem worthy of especial attention: — 
 
 First, that for some years after his mar- 
 riage he had never thought of himself as more 
 nicely put together than other men. He could 
 not say for certain whether he had ever thought 
 of himself at all, his loom taking up so much 
 of his time. 
 
 Second, that Chirsty was able to aggravate 
 him by saying that if which was which she 
 would have married James Pitbladdo. 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 5 
 
 Third, that he was held, of little account by 
 the neighbors, who spoke of his living "above 
 Lunan's shoppy," but never localized the shop 
 as "below Haggart's house." 
 
 Fourth, that while on his wanderings he ex- 
 perienced certain novel and singular sensations 
 in his inside, which were probably his humor 
 trying to force a passage. 
 
 Fifth, that in the great scene which ended 
 his wanderings, his humor burst its banks like 
 a dam, and had flowed in burns ever since. 
 
 During nearly forty years we contrived now 
 and again to harness Tammas to his story, but 
 often he would stop at the difficulty of re- 
 alizing the man he must have been in his pre- 
 humorous days, and remark, in his sarcastic 
 way, that the one Haggart could not fathom 
 the other. Thus our questionings sometimes 
 ended in silence, when we all looked in trouble 
 at the fire and then went home. As for start- 
 ing him on the story when he was not in the 
 vein, it was like breasting the brae against a 
 high wind. 
 
 When the events happened I was only a lad. 
 I cannot send my mind back to the time when 
 I could pass Haggart without the side-glance 
 nearly all Thrums offered to his reputation, 
 
6 A TIULYIiOSS SCANDAL 
 
 and he is best pictured hunkering at Tillyloss, 
 one of the row of his admirers. After eight 
 o'clock it was the pleasant custom of the 
 weavers to sit in the open against a house or 
 dyke, their knees near their chins and their 
 ears ready for Haggart. Then his face would 
 be contracted in pain as some strange idea 
 bothered him and he searched for its humor- 
 ous aspect. Perhaps ten minutes afterwards 
 his face would expand, he would slap his knees, 
 and we knew that the struggle was over. It 
 was one of his ways, disliked at the time, yet 
 admired on reflection, not to take us into the 
 secret of his laughter; but he usually ended by 
 looking whimsically in the direction of the 
 burying-ground, when we were perfectly aware 
 of the source of the joke, and those of us 
 nudged each other who were not scared. Until 
 the spell was broken we might sit thus for the 
 space of a quarter of an hour, none speaking, 
 yet in the completest sympathy, because we 
 were all thinking of the same thing, and that a 
 gravestone. , , 
 
 Tillyloss is three broken rows of houses in 
 the east end of Thrums, with gardens between 
 them, nearly every one of which used to con- 
 tain a pig-sty. There are other ways of getting 
 into the gardens than by windows, for those 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 7 
 
 who are sharp at knowing a gate when it looks 
 like something else. Three or four other 
 houses stand in odd corners, blocking the nar- 
 row road, which dodges through Tillyloss like 
 a hunted animal. Starting from the west end 
 of the suburb, as Tillyloss will be called as 
 soon as we can say the word without smirking, 
 the road climbs straight from the highway to 
 the uppermost row, where it runs against a 
 two-story house. Here we leave it as many a 
 curious stranger has done, to get out of Tilly- 
 loss the best way it can, for that two-storied 
 house is where Tammas Haggart lived, up the 
 otherside stair, the west room. 
 
 Tammas flitted to the Tenements a year 
 after he became a humorist, and it is an ex- 
 traordinary tribute to his memory that the road 
 from the pump up to his old residence in Tilly- 
 loss is still called Haggart's Roady. Many per- 
 sons have inhabited his room since he left it, 
 but though the younger ones hold out for an 
 individuality of their own, the graybeards still 
 allow that it is Haggart's house. To this day 
 Tillyloss residents asked for a landmark to 
 their dwellings may reply: 
 
 "I'm sax houses south frae Haggart's," or 
 "Onybody can point out Haggart's stair to 
 
8 A TILLY LOSS SCANDAL 
 
 you. Ay, weel, gang to that, and then come 
 back three doors." 
 
 The entrance to Lunan's shop was beneath 
 Haggart's stair, which provided a handy retir- 
 ing place in wet weather. Lunan's personality 
 had the enormous advantage of a start of 
 Tammas's, as has been seen, yet Haggart has 
 practically swallowed Lunan, who in his more 
 crabbed age scowled at the sightseers that came 
 to look at the second story of the house and 
 ignored the shop. As boys we envied, more 
 than learning, the companion whose father kept 
 a shop, and I remember Lunan's son going with 
 his fists for the banker's son who — though he 
 never really believed it — said that his father 
 could have a shop if he liked. Yet the grand 
 romance of Haggart choked the fame of Lunan 
 even with the lads who played dumps at Tilly- 
 loss, and the shop came to be localized as "be- 
 neath Haggart's stair." Even Lunan's stout- 
 ness, which was a landmark in itself, could not 
 save him. The passage between his counter 
 and the wall was so narrow and the rest of his 
 shop so full of goods that before customers 
 could enter Lunan had to come out, but in this 
 quandary his dignity never left him. He al- 
 ways declined to join the company who might 
 be listening on the stair to Tammas's adven- 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 9 
 
 tures, but some say he was not above heark- 
 ening through a hole in one of the steps. 
 
 The exact date of Haggart's departure can- 
 not be determined, though it was certainly in 
 the back end of the year 1834. He had then 
 been married to Chirsty a little short of three 
 years. His age would be something beyond 
 thirty, but he never knew his birthday, and I 
 have heard him say that one of the few things 
 he could not understand was how the relatives 
 of a person deceased could know the precise 
 age to send to the newspapers. 
 
 What is, however, known for certain is that 
 Tammas's adventures began within a week 
 of the burial of old Mr. Yuill, the parish 
 minister. There had been a to-do about who 
 should preach the funeral sermon, two minis- 
 ters having words over it, and all Thrums 
 knowing that Mr. Yuill had left seven pounds 
 to the preacher. At this time Haggart did 
 not belong to the Auld Lichts, nor was he 
 even regular in his attendance at the parish 
 church, but the dispute about the funeral 
 sermon interested him greatly, and when he 
 heard that the session was meeting to decide 
 the affair, he agreed with Chirsty that he 
 might do worse than hang around the door 
 on the chance of getting early information. 
 
10 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 There was a small crowd at the door on the 
 same errand, all of whom noticed, though they 
 little thought it would give him a topic to 
 their dying day, that Haggart had on his 
 topcoat. It had been an old one of Mr. 
 Yuill's, presented to Tammas, who could not 
 fill it, but refused to have it altered, out of 
 respect to the minister's memory. It has also 
 been fondly recalled of Tammas that he was 
 only shaven on the one side, as if Chirsty had 
 sent him to the meeting in a hurry, and that 
 he had not the look of a man who was that 
 very night to enter upon experiences which 
 would confound the world. ■ 
 
 "It was an impressive spectacle," Snecky 
 Hobart said subsequently, "to see Tammas 
 discussing the burial sermon, just as keen as 
 me and T'nowhead, and then to think that 
 within twenty-four hours the very ministers 
 themselves would be discussing him." 
 
 "He said to me it had been a dowie day," 
 T'nowhead always remembered. 
 
 "He shoved me when he was crushing in 
 nearer the door," was Hender Robbie's boast. 
 "But he took a snuff out of my mull." 
 "Maybe he did, but I was the last he spoke 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 11 
 
 to. He said, 'Well, Dan'l, I'll be stepping back 
 to Tilly.' " 
 
 "Ay, but I passed him at the Tenements, 
 and he says, 'Davit,' he says, and I says, 
 'Tammas.' " 
 
 "Very like; but I was carrying a ging of 
 water frae Susie Linn's pump, and Tammas 
 said would I give him a drink, the which I 
 did." 
 
 "Lads, I'm no sure but what I noticed a 
 far-away look in Tammas's face, as if there 
 was something on his mind." 
 
 "If ye did, Jeames, ye kept it to yourself." 
 
 "Ay, but I meant to mention it when I got 
 hame." 
 
 "How did ye no, then?" 
 
 "How does a body no do many a thing? I 
 dinna say I noticed the look, but just that 
 I'm no sure but what I noticed it." 
 
 So we all did our best to recall Haggart's 
 last words and looks on that amazing evening, 
 even the Auld Licht minister, who cared little 
 for popularity, claiming as a noticeable thing 
 to have walked behind Tammas and observed 
 that his handkerchief was hanging out of his 
 north pocket. But though all these memories 
 have their value as relics, we have Tammas's 
 
12 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 own word for it that from the time he reached 
 the session house until his return to Tillyloss 
 he felt much as usual. 
 
 "Ay," he would say in his impressive way, 
 "many a thing may happen between the aucht 
 and the ten-o'clock bells, but I told neither 
 T'nowhead nor Snecky nor none of them as 
 onything was to happen that nicht." 
 
 "Ye did not, Tammas; na, na, for if ye 
 had I would have heard ye, me being there." 
 
 "Ay, but ye couldna say my reason for no 
 telling ye?" 
 
 "Na." 
 
 "Weel, then, my reason was just this that I 
 didna ken myself." 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL. 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CONTAINING THE CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH LED 
 TO THE DEPARTURE OF HAGGART. 
 
 In the future Haggarfs mind was to be- 
 come a book in which he could turn up any 
 page wanted, but its early stage was a ravel 
 not worth harking back to unless for pur- 
 poses of comparison. He could never, there- 
 fore, when questioned, say for certain that 
 between the session house and Tillyloss he 
 had met a soul except the Auld Licht minis- 
 ter, to see whom was naturally to feel him. 
 At the foot of Tilly, however, he was taken 
 aback to find a carriage and two horses 
 standing. 
 
 The sight knocked all the news he had 
 heard about the funeral sermon out of his 
 head, and left him with just sufficient sense to 
 put his back to the wall and assume the appear- 
 ance of a man who would begin to think direct- 
 ly. First he gazed at the horses, and said, 
 
 "Ay." 
 
 Then he looked less carefully at the coach- 
 man. 
 
14 A TIIiLYIiOSS SCANDAL 
 
 "Yes," he said. 
 
 Lastly, he gave both eyes to the carriage, 
 and corroborated his previous remarks with, 
 "Umpha." 
 
 In themselves these statements suggest little, 
 though they really left Haggart master of the 
 situation. The first was his own answer to 
 the question, "Will these be Balribbie's 
 beasts?" and the second was merely a stepping- 
 stone to the third, which was a short way of 
 saying that the ladies had called on Chirsty 
 at last. 
 
 Tammas's wife, Chirsty, had been a servant 
 at Balribbie, the mistress of which had prom- 
 ised, as most of Thrums was aware, to call 
 on her some day. 
 
 "Ye'll be none the better though she does 
 6all," Haggart used to say, to which Chirsty's 
 inhuman answer was, 
 
 "Maybe no; but it'll make every other wom- 
 an in Tillyloss miserable." 
 
 Every day for a year Chirsty awaited the 
 coming of the ladies, after which it was the 
 neighbors who spoke of the promise:! visit 
 rather than herself. But evidently the ladies 
 had come after all, and the question for 
 Tammas was whether to face them or step 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 15 
 
 about Tilly until they had driven away. It 
 is difficult, no doubt, to believe that there ever 
 was a time when Haggart would rather have 
 hidden behind a dyke than converse with the 
 gentry, but I have this from himself. He, 
 whose greatest topic in the future was to be, 
 Women, and Why we should Put up with 
 Them, however Unreasonable, could not think 
 of the proper thing to say to the ladies of 
 Balribbie. 
 
 "Losh, losh," he has said, when casting his 
 mind back to this period, "it's hard to me to 
 believe that the unhumorous man swithering 
 at the foot of Tilly that nicht was really 
 Tammas Haggart, and no just somebody 
 dressed up in Tammas Haggart's image." 
 
 If it was hard to Tammas, how much harder 
 to the like of us. 
 
 Witho it actually deciding to show tail, 
 Tammas continued to lean heavily against the 
 wall, whore he was not conspicuous to two 
 women who passed a little later with baskets 
 on their arms. 
 
 "I assure ye Chirsty's landed," one of them 
 said, "for she has her grand folk after all." 
 
 "Ay," said the other, "and Tammas is no 
 in, so she'll no need to explain how her man's 
 
16 ' A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 so lang and thin by what he was when she 
 exhibited him at Balribbie." 
 
 "What do ye mean, ye limmers?" cried Hag- 
 gart, stepping into sight. "I was never at 
 Balribbie." 
 
 They slipped past him giggling, with the 
 parting shots— 
 
 "Chirsty can tell ye what we mean," and 
 "And so can Jeames Pitbladdo." 
 
 Haggart probably sent his under lip over 
 the upper one, for that was his way when 
 troubled. He was aware that Chirsty had 
 very nearly married Pitbladdo, but these wom- 
 en meant something else. Without knowing 
 that he was doing so, he marched straight for 
 his house, and was half-way up the outside 
 stair' when the door opened, and two ladies, 
 accompanied by Chirsty, came out. Haggart 
 did not even know what they were like, though 
 he was to become such an authority on the 
 female face and figure. He stopped, wanting 
 the courage to go on and the discourtesy to 
 turn back. So he merely stood politely in 
 their way. 
 
 Chirsty gave her curls an angry shake as 
 she saw him, but he had to be acknowledged. 
 
 "This is himsel' " she said with the con- 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 17 
 
 tempt a woman naturally feels for her hus- 
 baad. 
 
 Yhus cornered, Tammas opened his mouth 
 wide, to have his photograph taken, as it were, 
 by the two ladies. The elder smiled and said, 
 
 "I am glad to make your acquaintance, 
 James." 
 
 Tammas thinks she said more, but could 
 never swear to it. To keep up with her quick 
 way of speaking was a race for him, and at 
 the word "James" he stumbled, as against a 
 stone. When he came to himself, 
 
 "Thank ye, mem," he said, "but my 
 name " 
 
 Here Chirsty gave him a look that made him 
 lose his words. 
 
 "Let the leddies pass, can ye no?" she ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 For a moment Tammas did not see how they 
 could pass, unless by returning to the house, 
 when ho could follow them and so get rid of 
 himself. Then he had the idea of descending. 
 
 "A.t the same time," he said, picking up the 
 lost words, "my name " 
 
 "Dinna argy bargy with the leddies," said 
 Chirsty, tripping down the stair like a lady 
 
IS A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 herself, but not hoisting the color that would 
 at that moment have best become her. 
 
 "You must come out to Balribbie again and 
 see us, James," the elder lady remarked by 
 way of good-night. 
 
 Tammas turned a face of appeal to his other 
 visitor, who had been regarding him curiously. 
 
 "Do you know, James," she said, "I would 
 not have recognized you again?" 
 
 "Very like," answered Tammas, "for ye never 
 saw me." 
 
 "Be ashamed of yourself, James," cried 
 Chirsty, shocked to hear husband of hers con- 
 tradict a lady. 
 
 The young lady, however, only smiled. 
 
 "Oh, James," she said, playfully, "to think 
 you have forgotten me, and I poured out your 
 tea that day at Balribbie with my own hand." 
 
 In his after years Tammas, tempted to this 
 extent, would have answered in some gallant 
 words such as the young lady could have 
 taken away with her in the carriage. But 
 that night he was only an ordinary man. 
 
 "I never set foot in Bal " he was reply 
 
 ing, when Chirsty interfered. 
 
 "Well he minds of it," she said, audaciously, 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 19 
 
 "and no farther back than Monday he says 
 to me, 'That was a cup of tea/ he says, 'as I 
 never tasted the marrows of/ " 
 
 "Wuman!" cried Tammas. 
 
 "See to the house, James," said Chirsty, 
 "and I'll go as far as the carriage with the 
 ladies." 
 
 When Chirsty returned, five minutes after- 
 wards, her husband was standing where she 
 had left him. 
 
 "My nsune, mem," he was saying to the 
 stair, "is not James, but Tammas, and it's 
 gospel I tell ye when I say I was never at 
 Balribbie in my born days." 
 
 Chirsty passed him without a word, and 
 went into the house, slamming the door. Tam- 
 mas and his tantrums did not seriously dis- 
 turb her, but she had been badly used on her 
 way b?.ck from the carriage. While helping 
 the ladies to their seats she had been happily 
 conscious of Kitty Crabb peeping at the proud 
 sight from the back of the doctor's dyke, and 
 as Kitty was the most celebrated gossip in 
 Tillyloss, Chirsty thought to herself, "It'll be 
 through Tilly before bedtime." 
 
 "Ay, Kitty," she said, on her way back, look- 
 
20 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 ing over the dyke, "that was the Balribbie 
 family calling on me." 
 
 Kitty, however, could never stand Chirsty's 
 airs, and saw an opportunity of humbling her. 
 
 "I saw nobody," she answered. 
 
 "They've been in my house since half nine," 
 cried Chirsty, anxiously, "and that was their 
 carriage." 
 
 'I saw no carriage," said Kitty, cruelly. 
 
 "I saw ye gaping at it ower the dyke," 
 Chirsty screamed, "and that's it ye hear driv- 
 ing east the road." 
 
 "I hear nothing," said Kitty. 
 
 "Katrine Crabb," cried Chirsty, "think shame 
 of yourself." 
 
 "Na, Chirsty," rejoined Kitty, "ye needna 
 blame me if your grand folk ignore ye." 
 
 So Chirsty entered her house with the dread 
 fear that no one would give her the satisfac- 
 tion of allowing that the Balribbie family had 
 crossed its threshold. She was wringing a 
 duster, as if it were Kitty Crabb, when Tammas 
 stamped up the stair in no mood to offer 
 sympathy. 
 
 He kept his bonnet on, more like a visitor 
 than a man in his own house, but as ha 
 plumped upon a stool by the fire he flung his 
 
A TILLTLOSS SCANDAL, 21 
 
 feet against the tongs in a way that showed 
 he required immediate attention. 
 
 "I'm waiting," he said, after a pause. 
 . "Take your feet off the fender," replied 
 Chirsty. 
 
 "Tell me my name immediately," requested 
 Tammas. 
 
 "That's what's troubling ye?" 
 
 "It is so. What's my name?" 
 
 "Sal, whatever it is, I wish it wasna mine." 
 
 "Your grand folk called me James." 
 
 "So I noticed." 
 
 "How was that?" 
 
 "Ye couldna expect the like of them to ken 
 the ins and outs of your name." 
 
 "Nane of your tricks, wuman; I wasna born 
 on a Sabbath. It was you that said my name 
 was Jeames; ay, and what's more, ye called me 
 Jeames yoursel'." 
 
 "Do ye think I was to contar grand folk 
 like the Balribbie family?" 
 
 "Conter here, conter there, I want to bot- 
 tom this. They said I had been at Balribbie." 
 
 "Weel, I think ye micht have been glad to 
 take the credit of that." 
 
22 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 "It's my opinion," said Tammas, "that ye've 
 been pretending I was Jeames Pitbladdo." 
 
 "Ye micht have been proud of that, too," 
 retorted Chirsty. 
 
 "As sure as death," said Tammas, "if ye 
 dinna clear this up I gang to Balribbie for licht 
 on't." 
 
 "She looked me in the face at that," Tam- 
 mas used to say as he told the story, "and 
 when she saw the michty determination in it 
 she began to sing small. I pointed to the 
 place whaur I wanted her to stand, and I 
 says, 'Now, then, I'm waiting.' " 
 
 "I never pretended to ye," said Chirsty, "but 
 what it was touch and go my no marrying 
 Jeames Pitbladdo." 
 
 Tammas nodded. 
 
 "The leddies at Balribbie thocht it was him 
 I was to marry." 
 
 "I daursay." 
 
 "They dinna ken about you at that time." 
 
 "They dinna seem to ken about me yet." 
 
 "Jeames used to come about Balribbie a heap, 
 and they saw he was after me, and Miss Mary 
 often said to me was I fond of him? Ay, and 
 I said he was daft about me. Then he spiered 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 23 
 
 me, and after that they had him up to the 
 house." 
 
 "So, so, and that was the time he got the 
 tea?" 
 
 "It was so, and then I gave up my place, 
 them promising to come and visit me when I 
 was settled." 
 
 "Ay, but Jeames creepit off after all." 
 
 "Weel ye ken it was his superstitiousness 
 made him give me the go-by." 
 
 "I've heard versions of the story frae folk 
 in the toon, but I didna credit them. Ye took 
 guid care never to tell me about it yoursel'. 
 Ye said to me it was you that wouldna have 
 him, no that he wouldna take you." 
 
 "He wanted me, but he was always a super- 
 stitious man, Jeames Pitbladdo. He was never 
 fonder of me than when we parted." 
 
 "All I ken," said Tammas, "is that he 
 wouldna buy the ring to ye, and that must 
 either have been because he didna want ye 
 when it came to the point, or because he was 
 a michty greedy crittur." 
 
 "He's no greedy; and as for no caring for 
 me, it near broke his heart to give me up. 
 There was tears on his face when he parted." 
 
„4 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 "Havers! what was there to keep him frae 
 buying the ring if he wanted it?" 
 
 "His superstitiousness." 
 
 "What is there superstitious about a ring?" 
 
 "It wasna the ring; it was the hiccup did 
 it." 
 
 "Ay, I heard there was a hiccup in the story, 
 but I didna fash about it." 
 
 "Jeames did though, and it was a very 
 queery thing, I can tell ye, though I didna 
 put the wecht on it that he did. As many a 
 one kens forby me, he walked straight to Peter 
 Lambie's shop to buy the ring, and just as he 
 his hand on the door he took the hiccup. 
 Ye ken what a superstitious man Jeames is." 
 
 "If I wanted a wife it's no hiccup would 
 stand in the road." 
 
 "Because you're ower ignorant to be super- 
 stitious. And Jeames didna give in at the first 
 try. He was back at the shop the next nicht, 
 and there he took the hiccup again. Then he 
 came to me and said in terrible disappointment 
 as it would be wicked to marry in the face of 
 Providence. I never saw a man so crushed 
 like." 
 
 "Ay, I'm no saying but what this may be 
 
A Tli-iLiYiaOKa SI'AADAIi L'o 
 
 true, but it doesna explain your reason for 
 calling me Jeames." 
 
 "I call ye Tammas as a rule, when it's neces- 
 sary to mention your name. Ye canna deny 
 that." 
 
 "Tell me how I'm Jeames to the gentry." 
 "I wasna to disgrace mysel' to them, was 
 I?" 
 
 "Whaur's the disgrace in Tammas?" 
 
 "Ye maun see, Tammas Haggart, dull as 
 ye are, that it was a trying position for me 
 to be in. When I left Balribbie the leddies 
 thocht I was to marry Jeames Pitbladdo; did 
 they no?" 
 
 "I daursay." 
 
 "And I had told them Jeames was com- 
 plete daft about me; and so he was, for he 
 called his very porridge spoon after me, a 
 thing you never did." 
 
 "Did I ever pretend to you I had these poeti- 
 cal ways?" 
 
 "I wouldna have believed it, though you did. 
 But was ever mortal woman left in sich a pre- 
 dicament because of a superstition? Nat'rally, 
 when I married you, I didna' let on to the Bal- 
 ribbie family as ye wasna' Jeames Pitbladdo, 
 
26 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 and Jeames Pitbladdo they think ye to this 
 day. What harm does it do ye?" 
 
 "Harm! It leaves me complete mixed up 
 about mysel'. Chirsty Todd, ye have disgraced 
 me this nicht." 
 
 Here Chirsty turned on him. 
 
 "I've disgraced ye, have I? And wha has 
 shamed me every nicht for years, if no' yer- 
 sel', Tammas Haggart?" 
 
 "In what way have I shamed ye?" 
 
 "In many a way, and particularly with what 
 ye say at family worship. Take your feet off 
 that fender." 
 
 "I keep my feet on the fender till I hear 
 what new blether this is; ay, and longer if I 
 like." 
 
 "The things ye say in the prayer is an in- 
 sult." 
 
 "Canny, Chirsty Todd. That prayer, as weel 
 ye ken, was learned out of a book, the which 
 was lended to me for the purpose by a flying 
 stationer." 
 
 "Ye're a puir crittur if ye canna' make up 
 what to say yersel'. Do you think you'll ever 
 be an elder? Not you." 
 
 "Wha wants to be an elder?" 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 27 
 
 "'None of your blasphemy, Tammas Hag- 
 gart." 
 
 "What's wrang with the prayer?" 
 
 "Gang through it in your head, and you'll 
 soon see that." 
 
 Tammas repeated the prayer aloud, but with- 
 out enlightenment; whereupon Chirsty nearly 
 went the length of shaking him. 
 
 "Did ye not pray this minute," she said, 
 " 'for the heads of this house, and also the 
 children thereof?' " 
 
 "I did so." 
 
 "And have ye no' repeated these words every 
 nicht for near three years?" 
 
 "And what about that?" 
 
 "Tammas Hagart, have we any bairns? Is 
 there 'children thereof?' " 
 
 Tammas used to say that at this point he 
 took his feet off the fender. When he spoke 
 it was thus — 
 
 "As sure as death, Chirsty, I never thocht 
 of that." 
 
 His intention was to soothe the woman, but 
 the utter unreasonableness of the sex, as he 
 has pointed out, was finely illustrated by the 
 way Chirsty took his explanation. 
 
28 A TILLYL.OSS SCANDAL 
 
 "Ye never thocht of it!" she exclaimed, 
 "Tammas, you're a most aggravating man." 
 
 In his humorous period, Haggart could have 
 ptood even this, hut that night it was beyond 
 bearing. He jumped to his feet and stumbled 
 to the door. 
 
 "Chirsty Todd," he turned to say, slowly 
 and emphatically, "you're a vain tid. But be- 
 ware, woman, there's others than Jeames Pit- 
 bladdo as can take the hiccup." 
 
 Chirsty had strange cause to remember this 
 prophecy, but at the moment it only sent her 
 running to the door. Tammas was half-way 
 down Tillyloss already, but she caught him in 
 the back with this stone: 
 
 "Guid-Dicht, Jeames!" 
 
 With these words the Thrums Odyssey be- 
 gan. 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 29 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SHOWS HOW HAGGART SAT ON A DYKE 
 LOOKING AT HIS OWN FUNERAL. 
 
 Haggart must have left Tillyloss with 
 Chirsty heavy on his mind, for an hour after- 
 wards he was surprised to find himself out of 
 Thrums. He was wandering^ beneath trees 
 alongside the Whunny drain, which is said to 
 have been chiseled from the rocks when men's 
 wages were fourpence a day. Here he sat 
 down, preparatory to turning back. It was 
 now past his usual bedtime, and he had been 
 twelve hours at work that day. 
 
 "I canna say whether I sat lang thinking 
 about Chirsty," he afterwards admitted; "but 
 I mind watching a water-rat running out and 
 in among some nettles till it got mixed in my 
 mind with the shuttle of my loom, and by that 
 time I was likely sleeping." 
 
 The probability is that Tammas, -who met 
 no one, walked west from Tillyloss to Susie 
 Linn's pump, where he took the back wynd 
 and made for the drain edge by the west town 
 end. Tbis is the route we have usually given 
 him — though Lookaboutyou sends him round 
 
30 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 by the den — and I have walked it often with 
 Tammas when we were drawing up a sort of 
 map of his wanderings. The last time I did 
 this was in the company of William Byars, who 
 came back to Thrums recently after nearly 
 thirty years' absence, and spoke of Haggart 
 the moment his eyes lighted again on Tillylos's. 
 Those that saw him say that William was over- 
 come with emotion when he gazed at the mem- 
 orable outside stair, and at last walked away 
 softly saying, "Haggart was a man." What I 
 can say of my own knowledge is that William 
 met me one day as I was coming into Thrums 
 from my schoolhouse and asked me as a favor 
 to go round the "Haggart places" with him. 
 This I mention as showing what a hold the af- 
 fair we are now tracking took upon the popu- 
 lar mind. 
 
 I pointed out to William the very spot on 
 which Tammas fell asleep. The drain edge 
 path crossed the burn at that time by a foot- 
 bridge of stone, and climbed a paling into the 
 Long Parks of Auchtersmellie. A hoarding has 
 been erected on this bridge to make travelers 
 go another way, but it is also as good as a 
 sign-post, for ten yards due south from it 
 stands the short thick beech against which 
 Tammas Haggart undoubtedly slept for nearly 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 31 
 
 seven hours on that queer night. Even Look- 
 aboutyou admits this. 
 
 To make the scene as vivid as possible, Wil- 
 liam, at my suggestion, sat down beneath the 
 tree like one sleeping. I then went a little 
 way into the Long Parks and came back hur- 
 riedly, making pretense that it was a dark 
 night. I climbed the paling, crossed the bridge 
 — there being two loose spars in the hoarding — 
 and was passing on when suddenly I saw a 
 man sleeping at the foot of a tree. When re- 
 garding him I shivered, as if it was the depth 
 of winter, and then noted that he had on a 
 thick top-coat. After a little hesitation, I 
 raised him cautiously and got the coat off with- 
 out wakening him. I was rushing off with it 
 when I remembered that the night was cold 
 for him as well as for me, and flung my old 
 coat down beside him. Then I hurried off, but 
 of course came back directly, the make-believe 
 being over. 
 
 Something very like this happened while 
 Haggart was asleep, though no human eye wit- 
 nessed the scene. All we are sure of is that 
 the thief was dressed in corduroys like Tam- 
 mas's, and that the coat he left behind him was 
 a thin linen one, coarse, stained — though not 
 torn — and apparently worthless. There were 
 
32 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 twelve buttons on it — an unusual number, but 
 not, as Tammas discovered, too many. It is a 
 matter for regret that this coat was not pre- 
 served. 
 
 No doubt Tammas was shivering when he 
 woke up, but all his minor troubles were swal- 
 lowed in the loss of his top-coat, which was not 
 only a fine one, but contained every penny he 
 had in the world, namely, seven shillings and 
 sixpence in a linen bag. He climbed into the 
 Long Parks looking for the thief; he ran along 
 the drain edge looking for him, and finally he 
 sat down in dull despair. It was a cruel loss, 
 and now not his indignation with Chirsty, but 
 Chirsty's case against him, shook his frame. 
 
 "The first use I ever made of the linen coat," 
 he allowed, "was to wipe the water off my een 
 wi't." 
 
 Only fear of Chirsty can explain Haggart's 
 next step, which was, after putting' on the 
 linen coat, to wander off by the Long Parks, 
 instead of at once returning to Tillyloss. 
 
 I did not take William over the ground cov- 
 ered by Haggart during the next three days; 
 indeed, the great part of it is only known to 
 me by vague report. Tammas doubtless had 
 no notion when he ran away, as one might 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 33 
 
 call it, from Chirsty, that he would sleep next 
 night thirty miles from Thrums. At the hack 
 of the house of Auchtersmellie, however, he 
 fell in with a wandering tailor, bound for a 
 glen farm, where six weeks' work awaited him. 
 He was not a man of these parts, but Tammas 
 offered to walk a few miles with him, and 
 ended by going the whole way. Of Haggart's 
 experiences at this time I know much, but 
 none of them is visible beside the surprising 
 event that sent him homewards striding. 
 
 It takes one aback to think that Haggart 
 might never have been a humorist had not one 
 of the buttons fallen off his coat. The im- 
 mediate effect of this was dramatic rather 
 than humorous. The tailor picked up the but- 
 ton to sew it on to the coat again, but sur- 
 prised by its weight had the curiosity to tear 
 its linen covering with his scissors. Then 
 he drew in his breath, extending his eyes and 
 looking so like a man who would presently 
 whistle with surprise that Haggart stooped 
 forward to regard the button closely. Next 
 moment he had snatched up the button with 
 one hand and the coat with another, and was 
 off like a racer to the tinkle of the starter's 
 bell. 
 
 When beyond pursuit, Haggart sat down to 
 
34 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 make certain that he was really a rich man. 
 The button that had fallen off was a guinea — I 
 gold guineas we said in Thrums, out of re- 
 spect for them — covered with cloth, and a 
 brief examination showed that the eleven other 
 buttons were of the same costly kind. One 
 popular explanation of this mysterious affair 
 is that the tramp who left this coat to Tammas 
 had stolen it from some person unknown, with- 
 out realizing its value. Who the owner was 
 has never been discovered, but he was doubt- 
 less a miser, who liked to carry his hoard 
 about with him unostentatiously. I have 
 known of larger sums hidden by farmers in as 
 unlikely places, 
 
 Before resuming his triumphal march home, 
 Tammas pricked a hole in each of the but- 
 tons, to make sure of his fortune, and wasted 
 some time in deciding that it would be safer 
 to carry the guineas as they were than stowed 
 away in his boots. 
 
 "Sometimes on the road home," he used to 
 say, "I ran my head on a tree or splashed into 
 a bog, for it's sair work to keep your een on 
 twelve buttons, when they're all in different 
 places. Lads, I watched them as if they were 
 living things." 
 
 William and I crossed from the drain edge 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 35 
 
 to the hill, where the next scene in the drama 
 was played. The hill is public ground to the 
 north of Thrums, separated from it by the 
 cemetery and a few fields. So steep is the 
 descent that a heavy stone pushed from the 
 south side of the hill-dyke might crash two 
 minutes afterwards against the back walls of 
 Tillyloss. The view from the hill is among 
 the most extensive in Scotland, and it also ex- 
 poses some dilapidated courts in Thrums that 
 are difficult to find when you are within a 
 few feet of them. Fifty years ago the hill 
 was nearly covered with whins, and it is half 
 hidden in them still, despite the life-work of 
 D. Fittis. 
 
 For some reason that I probably never knew, 
 we always called him D. Fittis, but tradition 
 remembers him as the Whinslayer. At a time 
 when neither William nor I was of an age to 
 play smuggle, D. Fittis's wife lay dying far up 
 Glen Quharity. Her head was on D. Fittis's 
 breast, and tbe tears on her cheeks came from 
 his eyes. There were no human beings within 
 an hour's trudge of them, and what made D. 
 Fittis gulp was that he must leave Betsy alone 
 while he ran through the long night for the 
 ' Thrums doctor, or sit with her till she died. 
 
 "Ye'll no leave me, Davie," she said. 
 
3f. A TJLLY;L0SS scandal 
 
 "Oh, Betsy; if I had the doctor, ye micht 
 live." 
 
 Betsy did not think she could live, but she 
 knew her man writhed in his helplessness, and I 
 she told him to go. 
 
 "Put on your cravat, Davie," she said, "and 
 mind and button up your coat." 
 
 "Oh, but I'm loth to gang frae ye," he said 
 when his cravat was round his neck and he 
 stood holding Betsy's hand. 
 
 "God's with me, Davie, and with you," Betsy 
 said, but she could not help clinging to him, 
 and then D. Pittis cried, "Oh, blessed God, 
 Thou who didst in Thy great wisdom make 
 poor folk like me, in Thy hands I leave this 
 woman, and oh, ye micht spare her to me." 
 
 "Ay, but God's will be done," said Betsy. 
 "He kens best." 
 
 It was not God's will that these two should 
 meet again on this earth. At the schoolhouse, 
 which was to become my home, D. Fittis found 
 friends who hastened to his wife's side, and 
 Craigiebuckle lent him a horse on which he 
 galloped off to Thrums. But among the 
 whins of the hill the horse flung him and broke 
 his leg. D. Fittis tried to crawl the rest of 
 the way, but he was found next morning in a 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 37 
 
 wild state among the whins, and he was never 
 a sane man again. For the remainder of his 
 life he had but one passion — to cut down the 
 whins, and many a time, at early morn, at 
 noon, and when gloaming was coming on, I 
 have seen him busy among them with his 
 scythe. They grew as fast as he could cut, 
 but he had loving relatives to tend him, and 
 was still a kindly harmless man, though his 
 laugh was empty. 
 
 William and I waded through the whins to 
 a hollow in the hill, known as the toad's hole. 
 It was here that Haggart, returning boldly to 
 Thrums four days after Chirsty had the last 
 word, fell in with D. Fittis. 
 
 "He was cutting away at the whins," Tam- 
 mas remembered, "and I dinna think that the 
 whole time me and him spoke he ever raised 
 his head; he was a terrible busy man, D. 
 Fittis." 
 
 Haggart, big with his buttons, had, doubt- 
 less, as he approached the whinslayer, the 
 bosom of a victorious soldier marching home 
 to music. Nevertheless it has been noticed 
 that the warrior, who thrives on battles, may, 
 even in the hour of his greatest glory, he for- 
 ever laid prone by a chimney can. For Tarn- 
 
38 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 mas Haggart, confident that a few minutes 
 would see him in Tillyloss, was preparing a 
 surprise that rooted him to the toad's-hole like 
 a whin. I have a poor memory if I cannot re- 
 member Haggart's own words on this matter. 
 
 "I stood looking at D. Fittis for a while," 
 he told me, "but I said nothing loud out, 
 though the chances are I was pitying the 
 stocky in my mind. Then I says to him in 
 an ordinary voice, not expecting a dumfounding 
 answer, I says, 'Ay, D. Fittis, and is there ony- 
 thing fresh in Thrums;' 
 
 "He hacks away at the whins, but says he, 
 'The burial's this day.' 
 
 "'Man,' I says, 'so there's a funeral! Wha's 
 dead?' 
 
 " 'Ye ken fine,' says he, implying as the 
 thing was notorious. 
 
 " 'Na,' I says, 'I dinna ken. Wha is it?' 
 
 " 'Weel,' says he, 'it's Tammas Haggart.' " 
 
 Tammas always warned us here against at- 
 tempting to realize his feelings at these mon- 
 strous words. "I dinna say I can picture my 
 position now mysel'," he said, "but one thing 
 sure is that for the moment these buttons 
 slipped clean out of my head. It was an eerie- 
 like thing to see D. Fittis cutting away at the 
 
a TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 39 
 
 whins after making such an announcement. 
 A common death couldna have affected him 
 less." 
 
 " 'Say wha's dead again, D. Fittis,' I cries, 
 minding that the body was daft. 
 
 " 'Tammas Haggart,' says he, with the ut- 
 most confidence. 
 
 " 'Man, D. Fittis,' I says, with uncontrolled 
 indignation, 'ye're a big liar.' 
 
 " 'Whaever ye are,' says he, 'I would lick 
 ye for saying that if I could spare the time.' 
 
 " 'Whaever I am!' I cries. 'Very weel ye 
 ken I'm Tammas Haggart.' 
 
 "'Wha's the liar now?' says he. 
 
 "I was a sort of staggered at this, and I 
 says sharp-like, 'What did Tammas Haggart 
 die of?' 
 
 "I thocht that would puzzle him, if it was 
 just his daftness that made him say I was 
 gone, but he had his cause of death ready. 
 'He fell down the quarry,' says he. 
 
 "Weel, lads, his confidence about the thing 
 sickened me, and I says, 'Leave these whins 
 alone, D. Fittis, and tell me all about it.' 
 
 " 'I canna stop my work,' he says, 'but Tam- 
 mas Haggart fell down the quarry four nichts 
 since. Ou, it was in the middle of the nicht, 
 
40 A TLLiLiYLAJtiii SCAJNUAJLi 
 
 and all Thrums were sleeping when it was 
 wakened by one awful scream. It wakened the 
 whole town. Ay, a heap of folk set up sud- 
 den in their beds.' 
 
 " 'And was that Tammas Haggart falling 
 down the quarry?' I says, earnest-like, for I 
 was a kind of awestruck. 
 
 " 'It was so/ says he, tearing away in the 
 whins. 
 
 " 'They didna find the body, though,' I says, 
 looking down on mysel' with satisfaction. 
 
 " 'Ay,' says he, 'the masons found it the 
 next morning, and there was a richt rush of 
 folk to see it.' 
 
 "'Ye had been there?' I says. 
 
 " 'I was,' says he, 'and so was the wifie as 
 lives beneath me. She took her bairn too, for 
 she said, "It'll be something for the little ane 
 to boast about having seen when he grows 
 bigger." Ay, man, it had been a michty fall, 
 and the face wasna recognizable.' 
 
 " 'How did they ken, then,' says I, 'that it 
 was Tammas Haggart?' 
 
 " 'Ou,' says he at once, 'they kent him by 
 his top-coat.' 
 
 "Lads, of course I saw in a klink that the 
 
X THJL.YL.OSS SCANDAL, 41 
 
 man as stole my top-coat had fallen down the 
 quarry and been mista'en for me. Weel, I 
 nipped mysel' at that. It's an unco thing to 
 say, but I admit I was glad to have this proof, 
 as ye may call it, that it was really me as was 
 standing in the toad's hole. 
 
 "'When did ye say the burial was?' I asked 
 him. 
 
 " 'It's at half three this day,' he says, 'and 
 I'll warrant it's half three now, so if ye want 
 to be sure ye're no Tammas Haggart ye can 
 see him buried.' 
 
 "I took a long look at D. Fittis, and it's 
 gospel I tell ye when I say I never liked him 
 from that minute. Then I hurried up the hill 
 to the cemetery dyke, and sat down on it. 
 Lads, I sat there, just at the very corner, whaur 
 they've since put a cross to mark the spot, and 
 I watched my ain burial. Yes, there I sat for 
 near an hour, me, Tammas Haggart, an ordi- 
 nary man at that time, getting sich an exper- 
 ience as has been denied to the most highly 
 edicated in the land. I'm no boasting, but 
 facts is facts. 
 
 "I'm no saying it wasna a fearsome sight, 
 for I had a terrible sinking at the heart, and 
 a mortal terror took grip of me. so that I 
 
42 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 couldna have got off that dyke except by fall- 
 ing. Ay, and when the grave was filled up 
 and the mourners had dribbled away, I sat 
 on with some uncommon thochts in my mind. 
 It would be wearing on to four o'clock when 
 I got up shivering, and walked back to whaur 
 D. Pittis was working. There was a question 
 I wanted to put to him. 
 
 " 'D. Fittis,' I says, 'was there ony of the 
 Balribbie folk as visited Tammas Haggart's 
 wife in her affliction?' 
 
 " 'Ay,' says the crittur, trying to break a 
 supple whin with his foot, 'the wifie as lives 
 beneath me was in the house at Tillyloss when 
 In walks a grand leddy.' 
 
 " 'So, so,' I says, 'and was Chirsty ta'en up 
 like about her man being dead?' 
 
 " 'Ay/ says D. Fittis, 'she was greeting, but 
 as soon as the grand woman comes in, Chirsty 
 takes the wifie as lives beneath me into a cor- 
 ner and whispers to her.' 
 
 * 'D. Fittis,' I says, sternly, 'tell me what 
 Chirsty Todd whispered, for muckle depends 
 on it.' 
 
 " 'Weel,' he says, 'she whispered, "If the 
 leddy calls the corpse 'Jeames' dinna conter- 
 dict her.' 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 43 
 
 "I denounced Chirsty in my heart at that, 
 not being sufficient of a humorist to make al- 
 lowance for women, and I says, just to see if 
 the thing 'was commonly kent, I says, 
 
 "'And wha would Jeames be?' 
 
 " 'I dinna ken,' says D. Fittis, 'but maybe 
 you're Jeames yerself , when ye canna be Tam- 
 mas Haggart.' 
 
 "Lads, ye see now that it was D. Fittis as 
 put it into my head to do what I subsequently 
 did. 'Jeames,' I said, 'I'll be frae this hour,' 
 and without another word I walked off in the 
 opposite direction frae Thrums. 
 
 "I dinna pretend as it was Chirsty's be- 
 havior alone that sent me wandering through 
 the land. I had a dread of that funeral for 
 one thing, and for another I had twelve gold 
 guineas about me. Moreover, the ambition 
 to travel took hold of me, and I thocht Chirs- 
 ty's worst trials was over at ony rate, and 
 that she was used to my being dead now." 
 
 "But the well-wisher, Tammas?" we would 
 say at this stage. 
 
 "Ay, I'm coming to that. I walked at a 
 michty stride alang the hill and round by the 
 road at the back of the three-cornered wood 
 to near as far as the farm of Glassal, and 
 
44 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL. 
 
 there I sat down at the roadside. I was be- 
 ginning to be mair anxious about Chirsty now, 
 and to think I was fell fond of her for all her 
 exasperating ways. I was torn with conflict- 
 ing emotions, of which the one said, 'Back ye 
 go to Tillyloss,' but the other says, 'Ye'll never 
 have a chance like this again.' Weel, I could 
 not persuade mysel', though I did my best, 
 to gang back to my loom and hand ower the 
 siller to Chirsty, and so, as ye all ken, I com- 
 promised. I hurried back to the hill- " 
 
 "But ye've forgotten the cheese?" 
 
 "Na, listen: I hurried back to the hill, won- 
 dering how I could send a guinea to Chirsty, 
 and I minded that I had about half a pound 
 of cheese in my pouch, the which I had got at 
 a farm in Glen Quharity. Weel, I shoved a 
 guinea into the cheese, and back I goes to 
 the hill to D. Fittis. 
 
 "'D. Fittis,' I says, 'I ken you're an honest 
 man, and I want ye to take this bit of cheese 
 to Chirsty Todd.' 
 
 " 'Ay,' he says, 'I'll take it, but no till it's 
 ower dark for me to see the whins.' 
 
 "What a busy critter D. Fittis was, and to 
 no end! I left the cheese with him, and was 
 off again, when he cries me back. 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 45 
 
 " 'Wha will I say sent the cheese?' he asks. 
 I considered a minute, and then I says, 'Tell 
 her,' I says, 'that it is frae a well-wisher.' 
 
 "These were my last words to D. Fittis, for 
 I was feared other folk micht see me, and 
 away I ran. Yes, lads, I covered twenty miles 
 that day, never stopping till I got to Dundee." 
 
 It was Haggart's way, when he told his 
 story, to pause now and again for comments, 
 and this was a point where we all wagged our 
 heads, the question heing whether his assump- 
 tion of the character of a well-wisher was not 
 a clear proof of humor. "That there was hu- 
 mor in it," Haggart would say, when summing 
 up, "I can now see, hut compared to what was 
 to follow, it was neither here nor there. My 
 humor at that time was like a laddie trying 
 to open a stiff gate, and even when it did 
 squeeze past, the gate closed again with a 
 snap. Ay, lads, just listen, and ye'll hear how 
 it came about as the gate opened wide, never 
 to close again." 
 
 "Ye had the stuff in ye, though," Look- 
 aboutyou would say, "and therefore, I'm of 
 opinion that ye've been a humorist frae the 
 cradle." 
 
 "Little you ken about it," Haggart would 
 answer. "No doubt I had the material of 
 
46 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 humor in me, but it was raw. I'm thinking 
 cold water and kail and carrots and a penny- 
 bone are the materials broth is made of?" 
 "They are, they are." 
 "Ay, but it's no broth till it boils?" 
 "So it's no. Ye're richt, Tammas." 
 "Weel, then, it's the same with humor. Con- 
 sidering me as a humorist, ye micht say that 
 when my travels began I had put mysel' on the 
 fire to boil." 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL, 47 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE WANDERINGS OF HAGGART. 
 
 Not having a Haggart head on my shoulders 
 I dare not attempt to follow the explorer step 
 by step during his wanderings of the next five 
 months. In that time he journeyed through at 
 least one country, unconsciously absorbing 
 everything that his conjurer's wand could turn 
 to humor when the knack came to him. This 
 admission he has himself signed in conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 "Ay," he said, "I was like a blind beggar 
 in these days, and the dog that led me by a 
 string was my impulses." 
 
 Most of us let this pass, with the reflection 
 that Haggart could not have said it in his pre- 
 humorous days, but Sneck Hobart put in his 
 word. 
 
 "Ye were hardly like the blind beggar," he 
 said, "for ye didna carry a tanker for folk to 
 put bawbees in." 
 
 Sneck explained afterwards that he only 
 spoke to give Haggart an opportunity. It was, 
 
48 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 indeed, the way of all of us, when we saw 
 an opening, to coax Tammas into it. So 
 sportsmen of another kind can point out the 
 hare to their dogs, and confidently await re- 
 sults. 
 
 "Ye're wrang, Sneck," replied Haggart. 
 
 As ever, before shooting his bolt, he then 
 paused. His mouth was open, and he had the 
 appearance of a man hearkening intensely for 
 some communication from below. There were 
 those who went the length of hinting that on 
 these occasions something inside jumped to his 
 mouth and told him what to say. 
 
 "Yes, Snecky," he said at last, "ye're wrang. 
 My mouth was the tanker, and the folk I met 
 had all to pay toll, as ye may say, for they 
 dropped things into my mouth that my humor 
 turns to as muckle account as though they 
 were bawbees. I'm no sure " 
 
 "There's no many things ye're no sure of, 
 Tammas." 
 
 "And this is no one of them. It's just a 
 form of expression, and if ye interrupt me 
 again, Snecky Hobart, I'll say a sarcastic 
 thing about you that instant. What I was to 
 say was that I'm no sure but what a humorist 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 49 
 
 swallows everything whole that he falls in 
 with." 
 
 The impossibility of telling everything that 
 befell Haggart in his wanderings is best proved 
 in his own words: 
 
 '"My adventures," he said, "was so surpris- 
 ing thick that when I cast them over in my 
 mind I'm like a man in a corn-field, and every 
 stalk of corn an adventure. Lads, it's useless 
 to expect me to give you the history of ilka 
 stalk. I wrax out my left hand, and I grip 
 something, namely, an adventure; or I wrax 
 out my right hand and grip something, name- 
 ly, another adventure. Well, by keeping 
 straight on in ony direction we wade through 
 adventures till we get out of the field, that is 
 to say, till we land back at Thrums. Ye say 
 my adventures sounds different on different 
 nichts. Precisely, for it all depends on which 
 direction I splash off in." 
 
 Without going the length of saying that 
 Haggart splashed more than was necessary, I 
 may perhaps express regret that he never saw 
 his way to clearing up certain disputed pas- 
 sages in his wanderings. I would, I know, 
 be ill-thought of among the friends who sur- 
 vive him if I stated for a fact that he never 
 reached London. There was a general wish 
 
50 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 that he should have taken London in his 
 travels, and if Haggart had a weakness it was 
 his reluctance to disappoint an audience, i 
 must own that he trod down his corn-field 
 pretty thoroughly before his hand touched the 
 corn-stalk called London, and that his Londqn 
 reminiscences never seemed to me to have 
 quite the air of reality that filled his recollec- 
 tions of Edinburgh. Admitted that he con- 
 firmed glibly as an eye-witness the report that 
 London houses have no gardens (except at the 
 back), it remains undoubted that Craigiebuckle 
 confused him with the question: — 
 
 "What do they charge in London for half-a- 
 pound of boiling beef and a penny bone?" 
 
 Haggart answered, but' after a pause, as if 
 he had forgotten the price, which scarcely 
 seems natural. However, I do not say that he 
 was never in London, and certainly his curious 
 adventures in it are still retailed, especially 
 one with an ignorant policeman who could not 
 tell him which was the road to Thrums, and 
 another with the doorkeeper of the House of 
 Parliament, who, on being asked by Haggart 
 "How much was to pay?" foolishly answered, 
 "What you please." 
 
 But though I heartily approve the feeling in 
 Thrums against those carping critics who 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 51 
 
 would slice bits off the statue which we may 
 be said to have reared to Haggart's memory, 
 some of the stories now fondly cherished are 
 undoubtedly mythical. For instance, whatever 
 Lookaboutyou may say, I do not believe that 
 Haggart once flung a clod of earth at the Pope. 
 It is perfectly true that some such story got 
 abroad, but if countenanced by Haggart it was 
 only because Chirsty had her own reasons for 
 wanting him to stand well with the Auld Licht 
 minister. Often Haggart was said in his own 
 presence to have had adventures in such 
 places as were suddenly discovered by us in 
 the newspapers, places that had acquired a 
 public interest, say, because of a murder; and 
 then he neither agreed that he had been there 
 nor allowed that he had not. Thus it is rea- 
 sonable to believe that his less discriminating 
 admirers splashed out of Haggart's corn-fiela 
 into some other body's without noticing that 
 they had crossed the dyke. His silence at those 
 times is a little aggravating to his chronicler 
 » now, but I would be the first to defend it 
 against detractors. Unquestionably the length 
 of time during which Haggart would put his 
 under lip over the upper one, and so shut the 
 door on words, was one of the grandest proofs 
 of his humor. However plentiful the water in 
 
52 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 the dam may be, there are occasions when it 
 is handy to let down the sluice. 
 
 I the more readily grant that certain of the 
 Haggart stories may have been plucked from 
 the wrong fields, because there still remain a 
 sufficient number of authenticated ones to fill 
 the mind with rapture. A statistician could 
 tell how far they would reach around the 
 world, supposing they were represented by a 
 brick apiece, or how long they would take to 
 pass through a doorway on each other's heels. 
 We never attempted to count them. Being only 
 average men we could not conveniently carry 
 beyond a certain number of the stories about 
 with us, and thus many would doubtless now 
 be lost were it not that some of us loaded 
 ourselves with one lot and others with an- 
 other. Each had his favorites, and Haggart 
 supplied us with the article we wanted, just 
 as if he and we were on opposite sides of a 
 counter. Thus when we discuss him now we 
 may have new things to tell of him; nay, even 
 the descendants of his friends are worth 
 listening to on Haggart, for the stories have 
 been passed on from father to son. 
 
 Some enjoyed most his reminiscences of how 
 he felt each time he had to cut off another 
 button. 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 53 
 
 "Lads," he said, "I wasna unlike a doctor. 
 Ye mind Dr. Skene saying as how the young 
 doctors at the college grew faint like at first 
 when they saw blood gushing, but by and by 
 they became so michty hardy that they could 
 off with a leg as cool as though they were just 
 hacking sticks?" 
 
 "Ay, he said that." 
 
 "Well, that was my sensations. When I 
 cut off the first button it was like sticking the 
 knife into mysel', and I did it in the dark 
 because I hadna . the heart to look on. Ay, 
 the next button was a stiff job too, but after 
 that I grew what ye may call hard-hearted, 
 and it's scarce going beyond the truth to say 
 that a time came when I had a positive pleas- 
 ure in sending the siller flying. I dinna ken, 
 thinking the thing out calmly now, but what I 
 was like a wild beast drunk with blood." 
 
 "What was the most ye ever spent in a 
 week?" 
 
 "I could tell ye that, but I would rather ye 
 wanted to ken what was the most I ever spent 
 iin a nicht." 
 
 "How muckle?" 
 
 "Try a guess." 
 
 "Twa shillings?" 
 
 "Twa shillings!" cried Haggart, with a con- 
 
54 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 tempt that would have been severe had the 
 coins been pennies; "ay, sax shillings is nearer 
 the mark." 
 
 "In one nicht?" 
 
 "Ay, in one single nicht." 
 
 "Ye must have lost some of it?" 
 
 "Not a bawbee. Ah, T'nowhead, man, ye 
 little ken how money ■ goes in grand towns. 
 Them as lives like lords must spend like lords." 
 
 "That's reasonable enough, but I would like 
 to hear the price of ilka thing ye got that 
 nicht?" 
 
 "And I could tell ye. What do ye say to a 
 shilling and saxpence for a bed?" 
 
 "I say it was an intake." 
 
 "Of course it was, but I didna grudge it." 
 
 "Ye didna?" 
 
 "No, I didna. It was in Edinburgh, and my 
 last nicht in the place, and also my last but- 
 ton, so I thinks to mysel' I'll have one tre- 
 mendous, memorable nicht, and then I'll go 
 hame. Lads, I was a sort of wearying for 
 Chirsty." 
 
 "Ay, but there's four shillings and saxpence 
 to account for yet." 
 
 "There is so. Saxpence of it goes for a glass 
 of whisky in the smoking-room. Lads, that 
 smoking-room was a sight utterly baffling 
 
A. TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 55 
 
 imagination. There was no chairs in it except 
 creat muckle saft ones, a hantle safter than 
 a chaff bed, and in ilka chair some nobleman 
 or other with his feet up in the air. Ay, I a 
 sort of slipped the first time I tried a chair, 
 but I wasna to be beat, for thinks I, 'Lords ye 
 may be, but I have paid one and sax for my 
 bed as weel as you, and this nicht I'll "be a 
 lord too!' Keeping the one and sax before me 
 made me bold, and soon I was sprawling in 
 a chair with my legs sticking ower the arm 
 with the best of them. Ay, it wasna so much 
 enjoyable as awe-inspiring." 
 
 "That just brings ye up to twa shillings." 
 
 "Weel, there was another one and sax for 
 breakfast." 
 
 "Astounding!" 
 
 "Oh, a haver, of course, but we got as muckle 
 as we liked, and I assure ye it's amazing how 
 much ye can eat, when ye ken ye have to pay 
 for it at ony rate. Then there was ninepence 
 for a luncheon." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 "I didna ken myseF when I heard them 
 speaking about it, but it turned out to be a 
 grand name for a rabbit." 
 
 "Man, is there rabbits in Edinburgh?" 
 
 "Next there was threepence of a present to 
 
X A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 the waiter-loon, and I finished up with a shil- 
 ling's worth of sangwiches." 
 
 "Na, that's just five and saxpence." 
 
 Haggart, however, would not always tell how 
 the remaining sixpence went. At first he ad- 
 mitted having squandered it on the theatre, but 
 after he was landed by Chirsty in the Auld 
 Licht kirk he withdrew this reminiscence, and 
 put another sixpence-worth in the smoking- 
 room in its place. 
 
 As a convincing proof of the size of Edin- 
 burgh, Haggart could tell us how he lost his 
 first lodgings in it. They were next house to 
 a shop which had a great show of vegetables 
 on a board at the door, and Haggart trusted to 
 this shop as a landmark. When he returned 
 to the street, however, there were greengrocery 
 shops everywhere, and after asking at a num- 
 ber of doors if it was here he lived, he gave up 
 the search. This experience has been paralleled 
 in later days by a Tilliedrum minister, who 
 w T ent for a holiday to London, and forgot the 
 name of the hotel he was staying at; so he tele- 
 graphed to Tilliedrum to his wife, asking her 
 to tell him what address he had given her 
 when he wrote, and she telegraphed back to 
 him to come home at once. 
 
 Like all the great towns Haggart visited, 
 
A TLLLYJLOSS SCANDAL 57 
 
 Edinburgh proved to be running with low 
 characters, with whom, as well as with the 
 flower of the place — for he was received every- 
 where — he had many strange adventures. His 
 affair with the bailie would make a long story 
 Itself, if told in full as he told it; also what 
 he did v to the piper; how he climbed up the 
 Castle rocks for a wager; why he once marched 
 indignantly out of a church in the middle of 
 the singing; the circumstances in which he 
 cut off his sixth button; his heroic defense of a 
 lady who had been attacked by a footpad; his 
 adventures with the soldier who was in love 
 and had a silver snuffbox; his odd meeting 
 with James Stewart, lawful King of Great 
 Britain and Ireland. With this personago, be- 
 tween whom and a throne there only stood the 
 constables, Haggart of Thrums hobnobbed on 
 equal terms. The way they met was this. 
 Haggart was desirous of the sensation of driv- 
 ing in a carriage, but grudged much outlay 
 on an experience that would soon be over. He 
 accordingly opened the door of a street vehicle 
 and stepped in, when the driver was not look- 
 ing. They had a pleasant drive along famous 
 Princes Street and would probably have gone 
 farther had not Haggart become aware that 
 someone was hanging on behind. In his in- 
 
58 A TILT.YLOSS SCANDAL, 
 
 dignation he called the driver's attention to 
 this, which led to his own eviction. The hang- 
 er-on proved to be no other than the hapless 
 monarch, with whom Haggart .subsequently 
 broke a button. For a king, James Stewart, 
 who disguised his royal person in corduroys, 
 was, as Haggart allowed, very ill in order. 
 The spite of the authorities had crushed that 
 once proud spirit, and darkened his intellect, 
 and he took his friend to a gambling-house, 
 where he nodded to the proprietor. 
 
 "Whether they were in company, with de- 
 signs on my buttons," Haggart has said, "I'm 
 not in a position to say, but I bear no ill-will 
 to them. They treated me most honorable. 
 Ay, the king, as we may call him if we s];eak 
 in a low voice, advises me strong to gamble 
 a button at one go, for, says he, 'You're sure 
 to win.' Lads, it's no for me to say a word 
 against him, but I thocht I saw him wink to 
 the proprietor lad, and so I says in a loud 
 voice, says I, Til gamble half-a-crown first, 
 and if I win, then I'll put down a button.' The 
 proprietor a sort of nods to the king at that, 
 and I plunks down my half-crown. Weel, lads, 
 I won five shillings in a clink." 
 
 "Ay, but they were just waiting for your 
 guineas." 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 59 
 
 "It may have been so, Andrew, but we have 
 no proof of that; for, ye see, as soon as I got 
 the five shillings and had buttoned it up in 
 my pouch, I says, 'I'll be stepping hame now,' 
 I says, and away I goes. Ye canna say but 
 what they treated me honorable." 
 
 "They had looked thrawn?" 
 
 "Ou, they did; but a man's face is his own 
 to twist it as he pleases." 
 
 "And ye never saw the king again?" 
 
 "Ay, I met him after that in a close. I gave 
 the aristocratic crittur saxpence." 
 
 "I'll tell ye what, Tammas Haggart: if he 
 was proclaimed king, he would very likely send 
 for ye to the palace and make ye a knight." 
 
 "Man, Snecky, I put him through his cate- 
 chism on that very subject, but he had no 
 hope. Ye canna think how complete despond- 
 ent he was.*' 
 
 "Ye're sure he was a genuine Pretender?" 
 
 "Na faags! But when ye're traveling it 
 doesna do to let on what ye think, and I own 
 it's a kind of satisfaction to me now to pic- 
 ture mysel' diddling a king out of five shill- 
 ings." 
 
 "It's a satisfaction to everybody in Thrums, 
 Tammas, and more particular to Tillyloss." 
 
 "Ay, Tilly has the credit of it in a manner 
 
00 A TILLYLOS3 SCANDAL 
 
 of speaking. And it was just touch and go 
 that I didna do a thing with the siller as would 
 have commemorated that adventure among fu- 
 ture ages." 
 
 "Ay, man?" 
 
 "I had the notion to get bawbees for the 
 money, namely, one hundred and thirty-twa 
 bawbees, for of course I didna count the sax- 
 pence. Weel, what was I to do with them?" 
 
 "Put the whole lot in the kirk-plate the first 
 Sabbath day after ye came back to Thrums?" 
 
 "Na, na. My idea was to present a bawbee 
 to a hundred and thirty-twa folk in Thrums, 
 so as they could keep it round their necks or 
 in a drawer as a memento of one of their 
 humble fellow-townsmen." 
 
 "No humble, surely?" 
 
 "Maybe no, but when ye do a thing in a big 
 public way it's the proper custom to speak of 
 yersel' as a puir crittur, and leave the other 
 speakers to tell the truth about ye." 
 
 "It's a pity ye didna carry out that notion." 
 
 "Na, it's no, for I had a better ane after, the 
 which I did carry out." 
 
 "Yea?" 
 
 "Ay, I bocht a broach to Chirsty with the 
 siller." 
 
 "Ho, ho, that's whaur she got the broach?" 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL CI 
 
 "It is so, and though I dinna want to boast, 
 nobody having less need to do so, I can tell ye 
 it was the biggest broach in Edinburgh at the 
 price." 
 
 Edinburgh was only a corner in Haggart's 
 field of corn, and from it I have not pulled 
 half-a-dozen stalks. He was in various other 
 great centers of adventure, and even in wan- 
 dering between them he had experiences such 
 as would have been a load for any ordinary 
 man's luck. Once he turned showman, when 
 the actors were paid in the pennies flung at 
 them by admirers in the audience. Haggart 
 made for himself a long blood-red nose, which 
 proved such an irresistible target for moneyed 
 sportsmen that the other players complained 
 to the management. He sailed up canals 
 swarming with monsters of the deep. He 
 proved such an agreeable companion at farms 
 that sometimes he had to escape in the night. 
 He rescued a child from drowning and cowed 
 a tiger by the power of the human eye, exactly 
 as these things are done in a book which be- 
 longed to Chirsty. He had eleven guineas with 
 him when he set out, and without a note-book 
 he could tell how every penny of the money 
 was spent. Prices, indeed, he remembered bet- 
 ter than anything. 
 
62 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 I might as well attempt to walk up the wall 
 of a house as to cut my way through Hag- 
 gart's corn-field. Before arriving at the field 
 I thought to get through it by taking the but- 
 tons one by one, but here I am at the end of 
 a chapter, and scarcely any of the corn is be- 
 hind me. I now see that no biographer will 
 ever be able to treat Haggart on the grand 
 scale he demands; for humility will force 
 those who knew him in his prime to draw back 
 scared from the attempt, while younger ad- 
 mirers have not the shadow of his personality 
 to warn them of their responsibility. For my 
 own part, I publicly back out of the field, and 
 sit down on the doctor's dyke awaiting Hag- 
 gart's return to Thrums. 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 63 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE RETURN OF HAGGART. 
 
 Haggart came home on a Saturday evening, 
 when the water-barrels were running over, and 
 our muddy roads had lost their grip. But at 
 all times he took small note of the weather, 
 and often said it was a fine day out of polite- 
 ness to the acquaintances he met casually, 
 when Tillyloss dripped in rain. To a man who 
 has his loom for master it only occurs as an 
 afterthought to look out at the window. 
 
 His shortest and natural route would have 
 taken the wanderer to Tillyloss without zig- 
 zagging him through the rest of Thrums, but 
 he made a circuit of the town, and came march- 
 ing down the Roods. 
 
 "I wanted to burst upon the place sudden 
 like," he admitted, "and to let everybody see 
 me. I dinna deny but what it was a proud 
 moment, lads, as Thrums came in sicht. I 
 had naturally a sort of contempt for the placey, 
 and yet I was fell awid to be back in it too, 
 just as a body is glad to slip into his bed at 
 
64 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL. 
 
 nicht. Ay, foreign parts is grand for adven- 
 ture, but Thrums for company." 
 
 At the top of the Roods he was recognized 
 by two boys who had been to a farm for milk, 
 and were playing at swinging their flagon 
 over their heads without dropping its con- 
 tents. The apparition stayed the flagon in the 
 air, and the boys clattered off screaming. Their 
 father had subsequently high words with Tarn- 
 mas, who refused to refund the price of the 
 milk. 
 
 "Though my expectations was high," Haggart 
 said, "they were completely beaten by the 
 reality. Nothing could have been more gratify- 
 ing than the sensation I created, not only 
 among ladies and lassies but among grown 
 men and women. Very weel I ken that Dan'l 
 Strachen pretends he stood his ground when I 
 came upon him at the mouth of Saunders 
 Rae's close, but whaur was the honor in that, 
 when the crittur was paralyzed with fear? Ay, 
 he wasna the only man that lost his legs in 
 the Roods that day; Will'um Crewe being an- 
 other. Snecky Hobart, you was one of them as 
 I walked into at Peter Lambie's shop door, 
 and I'll never speak to ye again if ye dinna 
 allow as I scattered ye like a showman in the 
 square does when he passes round the hat." 
 
A T I LI A' LOSS SCANDAL 60 
 
 "I allow, Tammas, as I made my feet my 
 friend that nicht." 
 
 "And did I no send the women flying and 
 skirling in all directions? Was it me or was 
 it no me that made Mysy Dinnie faint on her 
 back in the corner of the school-wynd?" 
 
 "It was you, Tammas, and michty boastful 
 the crittur was when she came to, and heard 
 she had fainted." 
 
 "And there's a curran women as says they 
 hung out at their windows looking at me. I 
 would like to hear of one proved case in which 
 ony woman did that except at a second story 
 window? 
 
 "Sal, they didna dare look out at low win- 
 dows. Na, they were more like putting on 
 their shutters. 
 
 "And did some of them no bar their doors, 
 and am I lying when I say Lisbeth Whamand 
 up with her bairn out of the cradle and ran 
 to the door of the Auld Licht kirk, thinking 
 I couldna harm her there?" 
 
 "You're speaking gospel, Tammas. And it 
 wasna to be wondered at that we should be 
 terrified, seeing we had buried ye five months 
 before." 
 
 "I'm no saying it was unnatural. I would 
 have been particular annoyed if ye had been 
 
Gfi A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 so stupid as to stand your ground. And what's 
 more, if I had met the Auld Licht minister he 
 would have run like the rest." 
 
 But this oft-repeated assertion of Haggart's 
 was usually received in silence. His extra- 
 ordinary imagination enabled him to conceive 
 this picture, but to such a height we never 
 rose. 
 
 By the time Haggart reached the Tenements 
 the town had sufficiently recovered to follow 
 him at a distance. How he looked to the popu- 
 lace has been frequently discussed, Peter Lam- 
 bie's description being regarded as the best. 
 
 "Them of you," Peter would say, drawn to 
 the door of his shop by Haggart groups, "as 
 has been to the Glen Quharity Hieland sports, 
 can call to mind the competition for best- 
 dressed Hielander. The Hielanders stands in 
 their glory in a row, and the grand leddies 
 picks out the best-dressed one. Weel, the com- 
 petitors tries to look as if they didna ken they 
 were being admired, implying as they're indif- 
 ferent to whether they get the prize or no, but, 
 all the time, there's a sort of pleased smirk on 
 their faces, mixed up with a natural anxiety. 
 Ay, then, that's the look Tammas Haggart had 
 when he passed my shop." 
 
 "But ye saw a change come over him, did ye 
 no?" 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 67 
 
 "I did. I was among them as ran after him 
 along - the Tenements, and, though I just saw 
 his back, it wasna the back he had on when he 
 passed my shop. I would say, judging from his 
 back, as his chest was sticking out, and he 
 walked with a sort of strut, like the Hielander 
 as has won the prize and kens it would be a 
 haver to make pretence of modesty ony more." 
 
 "But ye never saw me look back, Peter," 
 Haggart said, when Lambie's version was pre- 
 sented to him. 
 
 "Na, it was astonishing how ye could have 
 kept frae turning your head. Ye was like one 
 unaware that there was sich a crowd running 
 after ye." 
 
 "Ay, lad, but very weel I went for all that. 
 Thinks I to mysel' as I walks on before ye — 
 'This scene winna be forgotten for many a 
 year'." 
 
 "And it will not, Tammas. It did the work 
 of the town for a nine days. Ay, I've often 
 said mysel' that you walked hame that nicht 
 more like a circus procession than a single 
 man. The only think I a kind of shake my 
 head at is your saying ye wasna a humorist at 
 that time." 
 
 "I didna just gang that length, Pete. I was 
 a humorist and I wasna a humorist. My humor 
 
(IS A TILIiYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 was just peeping out of its hole like a rabbit, 
 as ye rnicht say." 
 
 "Ye said as when ye started on your wan- 
 derings it was like putting yoursel,' considered 
 as a humorist, on the fire to boil. Weel, then, 
 I say as ye had come aboil when ye marched 
 through Thrums." 
 
 "Na, Lookaboutyou, it's an ingenious argu- 
 ment that; but ye've shot ower the top of the 
 target, lad. Ye've all seen water so terrible 
 near the boil that if ye touch it with your 
 finger it does begin to boil?" 
 
 "Ay, that's true; but a spoon is better to 
 touch it with, in case you burn your finger." 
 
 Lookaboutyou got a laugh for this, which 
 annoyed Tammas. 
 
 "Take care, Lookaboutyou," he said, warn- 
 ingly, "or I'll let ye see as my humor can 
 burn too. I ken a sarcastic thing to say to ye, 
 my man." 
 
 'But what about the water so near the boil?" 
 asked Hobart, while Lookaboutyou shrunk 
 back. 
 
 "My humor was in that condition," said 
 Haggart, still eyeing the foolish farmer 
 threateningly, "when I came back to Thrums. 
 It just needed a touch to make it boil." 
 
 "And, sal, it got the touch!" 
 
A TIL.L.YL.OSS SCANDAL 69 
 
 "Ay, I admit that; but no till the Monday." 
 
 We go back to the march from the Roods to 
 Tillyloss. In less time than it would have 
 taken Haggart to bring his sarcastic shaft 
 from the depths where he stowed these things 
 and fire it into Lookaboutyou, he had walked 
 triumphantly to Tillyloss, and turned up the 
 road that was presently to be named after 
 him. His tail of fellow-townsmen came to a 
 stop at the pump, where they had a good view 
 of Haggart's house, all but a few daring ones, 
 nearly all women, who ran up the dyke, in hope 
 of, witnessing the meeting with Chirsty. 
 
 "I suppose, lads," Haggart said to us, "that 
 ye're thinking my arrival at Tillyloss was the 
 crowning moment of my glory?" 
 
 "It was bound to be." 
 
 "So ye think, Andrew; but that just shows 
 how little ye ken about the human heart. I 
 got as far as Tillyloss terribly windy at the 
 way ye had honored me; but, lads, something 
 came ower me at sicht of that auld outside 
 stair. Ay, it had a michty hame-like look." 
 
 "I've heard tell ye stopped and gazed at it, 
 like grand folk admiring the view." 
 
 "Ay, lathies, I daursay I did so; but it 
 wasna the view I was thinking about. I'll war- 
 
t\) A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 rant ye couldna say what was in my mind?" 
 
 "Your funeral?" 
 
 "I never gave it a thocht. Na, but I'll tell ye: 
 I was thinking of Chirsty Todd," 
 
 "Ay, and the startle she was to get?" 
 
 "No, Snecky; it's an astonishing thing, but 
 the moment my een saw that outside stair I 
 completely lost heart, and frae being lifted up 
 with pride, down goes my courage like a 
 bucket in a well. Was it the stair as terrified 
 me? Na, it was Chirsty Todd. Lads, I faced 
 the whole drove of ye as bold as a king sit- 
 ting down at the head of his tea table; but 
 the thocht of Chirsty Todd brocht my legs to 
 a stop. Ay, for all we may say to the con- 
 trairy, is there a man in Thrums as hasna a 
 kind of fear of his wife? 
 
 At this question Haggart's listeners usually 
 looked different ways. 
 
 "Lads," continued Tammas, "it ran through 
 me suddenly, like a cold blast of wind — 'What 
 if Chirsty shouldna be glad to see me back?' 
 and I regretted michty that I hadna halved 
 the guineas with her. Ay, I tell ye openly, 
 as I found myseP getting smaller, like a gas- 
 ball with a hole in it, and I a kind of lost 
 sight of all I had to boast of. I was ashamed 
 of mysel' and also in mortal terror of Chirsty 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 71 
 
 Todd. Ay, but I never let her ken that: na, 
 na; a man has to be wary about what he tells 
 his wife." 
 
 "He has so, for she's sure to fling it at him 
 by and by like a wet clout. Women has ter- 
 rible memories for what ye blurt out to them." 
 
 "Ye're repeating my words, Rob, as if they 
 were your own; but what ye say is true. 
 Women doesna understand about men's minds 1 
 being profounder than theirs, and consequent- 
 ly waur to manage." 
 
 "That's so, and it's a truth ye daurna men- 
 tion to them. But ye was come to the out- 
 side stair, Tammas." 
 
 "Ay, I was. Lad,s, I climbed that stair all 
 of a tremble, and my hand was shaking so 
 muckle that for a minute I couldna turn the 
 handle of the door." 
 
 "We saw as ye a sort of tottered." 
 
 "Ay, I was uneasy; and even when the door 
 opened I didna just venture inside. Na, I 
 had a feeling as it was a judicious thing to 
 keep a grip of the door. Weel, lathies, I stood 
 there keeking in, and what does I see but 
 Chirsty Todd sitting into the fire, with my 
 auld pipe in her mouth. Ay, there she sat 
 blasting." 
 
 "How did that affect ye, Tammas?" 
 
72* A TILL.YLOSS SCANDAIj 
 
 "How did it affect me? It angered me most 
 michty to see her enjoying hersel', and me 
 thocht to be no more." 
 
 " 'Ye heartless limmer,' I says to mysel', and 
 that reminds me as a man is master in his 
 own house, so I bangs the door to and walks 
 in." 
 
 "Wha spoke first?" 
 
 "Oh, I spoke first. I spoke just as her een 
 lichted on me." 
 
 "Ye had said a memorable thing?" 
 
 "I canna say I did. No, Pete. I just gave 
 her a sly kind of look, and I says, 'Ay, 
 Chirsty.' " 
 
 "She screamed, they say?" 
 
 "She did so, and the pipe fell from her 
 mouth. Ay, it's a gratification to me to ken 
 that she did scream," 
 
 "And what happened next?" 
 
 "She spyed at me suspiciously; and says 
 she, 'Tammas Haggart, are you in the flesh?' 
 to which I replies, 'I am so, Chirsty.' 'Then,' 
 cries she sharply, 'take your dirty feet off my 
 clean floor!' " 
 
 "And did ye?" 
 
 "Ay, I put them on the fender; and she cries, 
 'Take your dirty feet off the fender.' 
 
 "Lads, I thocht it was best to sing small, 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 73 
 
 so I took off my boots, and she sat glowering 
 at me, but never speaking. 'Ay, Chirsty,' I 
 says, 'ye've had rain I'm thinking; and she 
 says, 'The rain's neither here nor there; the 
 question is, How did you break out?' Ay, the 
 critter thocht I had broken out of my grave. " 
 
 "We all thocht that." 
 
 "Nat'rally ye did. "Weel, I began my story 
 at the beginning, but with the impatience of a 
 woman she aye said, 'I dinna want to hear 
 that, I want to ken how you broke out!'" 
 
 "But she wanted to hear about the siller in 
 the buttons?" 
 
 "Ay, but I tried to slither ower the but- 
 tons, fearing she would be mad at me for 
 spending them. And, losh, mad she was! I 
 explained to her as I put them to good use 
 by improving my mind, but she says, 'Dinna 
 blather about your mind to me, or I'll take 
 the poker to ye!' Chirsty was always fond of 
 language." 
 
 "But what about the Well-wisher?" 
 
 "Oh, that was a queery, I says to Chirsty, 
 'I did not forget your sufferings, Chirsty, for 
 I'm the Well-wisher.' At first she didna un- 
 derstand, but then she minds and says, 'It 
 was you as sent that bit cheese with D. Fittis, 
 was it?' Lads, then it came out as the cheese 
 
74 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 was standing in the press untouched. Ay, I 
 tore it in twa with my hands, and out rolls 
 the guinea. She had never dreamed of there 
 being siller in the cheese." 
 
 "Na, she was terrified to touch the cheese. 
 I mind when I could have bocht it fae her 
 for twa or three bawbees. Ay, what chances 
 a body misses. But she had been pleasanter 
 with ye after she got the guinea?" 
 
 "I can hardly say that. She nipped it up 
 quick, and tells me to go on with my story- 
 Weel, I did so in a leisurely way, her aye nag- 
 ging at me to come %$ the quarry, as I soon had 
 to do. I need scarce tell ye she was michty 
 surprised it wasna me ye buried, but after that 
 was cleared up, I saw her mind wasna on 
 what I was saying to her. No, lads, I was the 
 length of Dundee in my story when she jumps 
 up, and away she goes to the lowest shelf in 
 the dresser. I stopped in my talk and watched 
 her. She pulls out the iron and lays it on the 
 table, then she shoves a heater into the fire, 
 and brings an auld dicky out of a drawer. 
 Lads, I had a presentiment what she was 
 after." 
 
 " 'What are ye doing, Chirsty?' I says with 
 misgivings. 
 
 " 'I'm to iron a dicky for ye to wear to- 
 
 "~S 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 75 
 
 morrow,' she cries, and she kicks my foot off 
 the fender. 
 
 " 'I'm no going to the kirk,' I warns her. 
 
 " 'Are ye no?' says she; 'ye gang twice, Tam- 
 mas Haggart, though the Auld Licht minister 
 has to drive ye to the door with a stick.' 
 
 "Ay, when I heard she had joined the Auld 
 Lichts I kent I was done with lazy Sabbaths. 
 Weel, she ironed away at that dicky with tre- 
 mendous energy, and then all at once she lays 
 down the iron and she cries, 
 
 "'Keeps us all, I had forgotten!' She was 
 the picture of woe. 
 
 "'What's the matter, Chirsty?' I says. 
 
 "She stood there wringing her hands. 
 
 " 'Ye canna gang to the kirk,' she moans, 
 'for ye have no clothes.' 
 
 "'No clothes!' I cries. 'I have my blacks.' 
 
 " 'They're gone,' she says. 
 
 "'Gone, ye limmer!' I says, 'wha has them?' 
 
 " 'Davit Whamand,' she says, 'has the coat, 
 and Hender Haggart the waistcoat and the 
 hat.' 
 
 "Ay, lads, I can tell ye this composedly now, 
 but I was fuming at the time. Chirsty's pas- 
 sion for genteelity was such that she had 
 imitated grand folk's customs and given away 
 the clothes as had been worn by the corpse." 
 
76 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 "That came of taking a wife frae Balribbie." 
 
 "Ay, and it's not the only proof of Chirsty's 
 vanity, for, as ye all ken, she continued to 
 wear her crape to the kirk long after I came 
 hack." 
 
 "Because she thocht it set her?" 
 
 "Ou, rather, just because she had it. But 
 it was aggravating to me to have to walk with 
 her to the kirk, and her in widow's crapes. 
 It would have provoked an ordinary man to 
 the drink." 
 
 "It would so, but what said ye when ye 
 heard the' blacks was gone?" 
 
 "Said? It wasna a time for saying. I 
 shoved my feet into my boots and flung on 
 my bonnet, and hurries to the door. 
 
 " 'Whaur are ye going?' cries Chirsty. 
 
 " 'To demand back my blacks,' I says, dash- 
 ing open the door with my fist. Ye may mind 
 there was some of ye keeking in at the door 
 and the window, trying to hearken to the con- 
 versation." 
 
 "Ay, and we flew frae ye as if ye was the 
 Riot Act. But we was thinking by that time 
 as ye micht be a sort of living." 
 
 'Maybe, but I wasna thinking about you. 
 Na, it was the blacks as was on my mind, and 
 away I goes." 
 
 "Ye ran." 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 7 7 
 
 "Yes, I ran straight to the Tenements to 
 Davit Whamand's house. Lads, I said the 
 pot was very near the boil when I marched 
 down the Roods, but my humor was getting 
 cold again. Ay, Chirsty Todd had suddenly 
 lifted the pot off the fire." 
 
78 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 IN WHICH A BIRTH IS RECORDED. 
 
 "Davit's collie barked at me," Haggart eon. 
 tinued, "when it heard me lifting the sneck 
 of the door, but I cowed it with a stern look, 
 and stepped inside. The wife was away crack- 
 ing about me to Lizzie Linn, but there was 
 Davit himsel' with a bantam cock on his knee, 
 the which was ailing, and he was forcing a 
 little butter into its nib. He let the beast fall 
 when he saw me, and I was angered to notice 
 as he had been occupied with a bantam when 
 he should have been discussing me with con- 
 sternation." 
 
 "It was the greater surprise to him when in 
 ye marched." 
 
 "Ay, but my desire to be thocht a ghost had 
 gone, and I says at once, 'Dinna stand trem- 
 bling there, Davit Whamand,' I says, 'for I'm 
 in the flesh, and so you'll please hand ower 
 my black coat!' He hardly believed I was 
 human at first, but at the mention of the coat 
 he grows stiff and hard, and says he, 'What 
 black coat?' 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 79 
 
 " 'Deception will not avail ye, Davit Wha- 
 mand,' says I, 'for Chirsty has confessed all.' 
 
 " 'The coat's mine,' says Davit, glowering. 
 
 " 'I want that coat direct,' I says. 
 
 " 'Think shame o' yoursel',' says he, 'and you 
 a corpse this half year.' 
 
 "The crittur tried to speak like a minister, 
 hut I waved away his argument with my hand. 
 
 " 'Back to the cemetery, ye shameless corp,' 
 says he, 'and I'll mention this to nobody; but 
 if ye didna. gang peaceably we'll call out the 
 constables.' 
 
 " 'Dinna haver, Davit Whamand,' I retorts, 
 'for ye ken fine I'm in the flesh, and if ye 
 dinna produce my coat immediately I'll take 
 the law of ye.' 
 
 '"Will ye?' he sneers; 'and what micht ye 
 call yoursel'?' 
 
 " 'I'll call mysel' by my own name, namely, 
 Tammas Haggart,' I thunders. 
 
 "'Yea, yea,' says he; 'I'm thinking a corp 
 hands on his name to his auldest son, and Tam- 
 mas Haggart being dead without a son the 
 name becomes extinct.' 
 
 "Lads, that did stagger me a minute, but 
 then I minds I'm living, and I cries, 'Ye sly 
 crittur, I'm no dead.' 
 
80 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 '"Are ye not?' says he; 'I think ye are.' 
 
 " 'Do I look dead?' I argues. 
 
 " 'Look counts for nothing before a bailie,' 
 says he, 'and if ye annoy me I'll bring wit- 
 nesses to prove you're dead. Yes, I'll produce 
 the widow in her crapes, and them as coffined 
 ye.' 
 
 " 'Ay,' I cries, 'but I'll produce myselV 
 
 " 'The waur for you,' says he, 'for if ye try 
 to overthrow the law we'll bury ye again, 
 though it should be at the public expense.' 
 
 "Lads, that made me uneasy, and all I could 
 think to do was just to fling out my foot at 
 the bantam. 
 
 " 'Ye daur look me in the face, Davit Wha- 
 mand,' I says, 'and pretend as I'm no mysel'?' 
 
 '"I daur do so,' he says; 'and not on'y are 
 ye no yersel', but I would never have recog- 
 nized ye for such.' 
 
 "'So, so,' I remarks; 'and ye refuse to de- 
 liver up my coat?' 
 
 " 'Yes,' he says, 'and what's more I never 
 had your coat.' 
 
 "Lads, that was his cautiousness in case twa 
 lines of defense was needed before the bailie; 
 but I said no more to him, for now the house 
 began to fill with folk wanting to make sure 
 of me, and I was keen to convince them I was 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 81 
 
 in the flesh before Davit prejudiced them. 
 Ay, Robbie, you was one of them as convoyed 
 me to Hender Haggart's." 
 
 "I was, Tammas, and when ye shut the door 
 on me a mask of folk came round me to hear 
 how ye had broke out." 
 
 "I daursay that, but their curiosity didna 
 interest me now. Ye mind when we got to 
 Hender's house it was black and dark, him 
 pretending to be away to his bed? Ay, but 
 the smell of roasting potatoes belied that. As 
 we ken now, Hender had been warned that I 
 was at Davit's demanding back the coat, and 
 he suspected I would come next to him for 
 the waistcoat and the hat." 
 
 "Ay, but he had to let ye in." 
 
 "Ou, I would have broken in the door rather 
 than have been beat, and in the tail of the 
 day Hender takes the snib off the door." 
 
 "He pretended he thocht ye a ghost too, did 
 he no?" 
 
 "No, no, that's a made up story. Hender 
 and his wife had agreed to pretend that, but 
 when Hender came to the door he became 
 stupid-like, and when I says 'Ay, Hender,' he 
 says 'Ay, Tammas.' I've heard his wife raged 
 at him about it after. 
 
 " 'Nanny,' I says to the wife, 'it's me back 
 
g2 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 again, and ye'll oblige by banding ower m: 
 waistcoat and my hat.' 
 
 "I've forgotten to tell ye that when I walker 
 in, Nanny was standing on a stool with 
 poker in her hand, the which she was using taL 
 shove .something on the top of the press outl 
 of sicht. She jumped down hurriedly, butf 
 looking bold, and says she, 'These mice is very 
 troublesome.' 
 
 "Weel, I had a presentiment, and I says, 
 'Give me the poker, Nanny, and I'll get at the 
 mice!' Says she, 'Na, na'; and she lifts away 
 the stool. 
 
 "All this time Render had been looking 
 very melancholy, but despite that, he was glad 
 to see me back, and he says in a sentimental 
 way, 'You're a stranger, Tammas,' says he. 
 
 " 'I am, Hender,' says I, 'and I want hay 
 waistcoat, also my hat.' 
 
 "Hender gave a confused look to the wife, 
 and says she, 'The waistcoat has been sold for 
 rags, and I gave the hat to tinklers.' 
 
 " 'Hender Haggart,' says I, 'is this so?' 
 
 "Hender a sort of winked, meaning that we 
 could talk the thing ower when Nanny wasna 
 there, but I couldna wait. 
 
 " 'I think, Nanny,' says I, pointedly, 'as I'll 
 take a look at these mice of yours.' 
 
 " 'Ye'll do no sich thing,' says she. 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 83 
 
 " 'I'm thinking,' says I, 'as I'll find a black 
 waistcoat on the top of that press, and like- 
 wise a Sabbath hat.' 
 
 "Hender couldna help giving me an admir- 
 ing look for my quickness, but Nanny put her 
 back to the press, and says she, 'Hender, am 
 I to be insulted before your face?' 
 
 "Hender was perplexed but he says to me, 
 'Ye hear what Nanny says, Tammas?' 
 * " 'Ay,' I says, 'I hear her.' 
 
 " 'He hears ye, Nanny,' says Hender. 
 
 " 'But I want my lawful possessions,' I cries. 
 
 "Hender hestitated again, but Nanny re- 
 peats, 'Hender, am I to be insulted before your 
 face?' 
 
 " 'Dinna insult her before my face,' Hender 
 whispers to me. 
 
 " 'I offer no insult,' I says, loud out, 'but 
 I've come for my waistcoat and my hat, and 
 I dinna budge till I get them.' 
 
 " 'Ye've a weary time before ye, then,' says 
 Nanny. 
 
 " 'I wonder ye wouldna be ashamed to keep 
 a man frae his belongings,' I said. 
 
 " 'Tell him they're yours, Hender,' she cries. 
 
 " 'Ye sea, Tjiimas,' says Hender, 'she says 
 they're mine.' 
 
 " 'Ay,' I says 'but ye canna pretend they're 
 yours yoursel\ Hender V 
 
84 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 " 'Most certainly ye can, Hender,' says 
 Nanny. 
 
 " 'Ye see that, Tammas,' says Hender, tri- 
 umphant. 
 
 " 'And how do ye make out as they are 
 yours?' I asks him. 
 
 "'Tell him,' cries Nanny, 'as ye got them for 
 helping in his burial.' 
 
 " 'Tammas,' says Hender, 'that's how I got 
 them.' 
 
 "'Maybe,' I says, 'but did I give ye them?' 
 
 " 'Say he was a corp,' Nanny cries. 
 
 " 'Meaning no disrespect, Tammas,' says 
 Hender, 'ye was a corp.' 
 
 " 'How could I have been a corp,' I argues, 
 'when here I am speaking to ye?' 
 
 "Hender turned to Nanny for the answer to 
 this, but she showed him her back, so he just 
 said in a weak way, 'We'll leave the minister 
 to settle that.' 
 
 " 'Hender, ye gowk,' I says, 'ye ken I'm liv- 
 ing; and if I'm living I'm no dead.' 
 
 "Lads, I regretted I hadna put it plain like 
 that to Davit Whamand. However,. Hender 
 hadna the clear-headedness necessary to fol- 
 low out sich reasoning, and he replies, 
 
 " 'No doubt,' he says, 'ye are living in a 
 sense, but no in another sense.' 
 
 " 'I wasna the corp,' I cried. 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 85 
 
 " 'Weel, weel, Tammas,' says he, in a fell 
 dignified voice, 'we needna quarrel on a mat- 
 ter of opinion.' 
 
 "I was just beginning to say as it was more 
 likely to be the waistcoat we would fall out 
 about, when in walks Chirsty in the most flur- 
 ried way. 
 
 " 'Tammas Haggart,' she pants, 'come hame 
 this instant; the minister's waiting for ye.' 
 
 "Which minister?" I asks. 
 
 " 'None other,' she says, looking proudly at 
 Nancy, 'than the Auld Licht minister.' 
 
 "Lads, I shook in my boots at that, and I 
 says, 'I winna come till I've got my hat and 
 my waistcoat.' 
 
 " 'What,' screams Chirsty, 'ye daur to keep 
 the minister waiting!' and she shoved me clean 
 out of the house." 
 
 What the minister said to Haggart is not 
 known for Tammas never divulged the con- 
 versation. Those who remained on the watch 
 said that the minister looked very stern when 
 walking back to the manse, and that Chirsty 
 found her husband tractable for the rest of 
 the evening. The most we ever got out of 
 Tammas on the subject was that though he 
 had met many terrifying folk in his wander- 
 ings, they were a herd of sheep compared to 
 
86 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 the minister. He had sometimes to be enticed 
 out of the reverie into which thought of the 
 minister plunged him. 
 
 "So it was next day ye dandered up to the 
 grave?" we would say craftily, though well 
 aware that he did not leave the house till Mon- 
 day. 
 
 "Na, na, not on the Sabbath day. When I 
 wakened in the morning I admit I was terri- 
 bly anxious to see the grave, as was natural, 
 but thocht of the minister cowed me. I 
 would have ventured as far as the grave if I 
 had been able to persuade mysel' I wasna go- 
 ing for pleasure, but pleasure it was, lads. Ay, 
 there was no denying that." 
 
 "Chirsty was at the kirk?" 
 
 "She was so, and in her widow's crapes. I 
 watched her frae the window. Ay, it's no 
 everybody as has watched his own widow." 
 
 "Na, and it had been an impressive specta- 
 cle. How would ye say she looked, Tammas?" 
 
 "She looked proud, Robbie." 
 
 "She would; but what would ye say she was 
 proud of?" 
 
 "Ah, Robbie, there you beat me. But I can 
 tell ye what she was proud of on the Monday." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Before porridge-time no less than seven 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 87 
 
 women, namely, three frae Tillyloss, twa frae 
 the Tenements, and twa frae the Roods, chaps 
 at the door and invites her to a dish of tea. 
 That's what she was proud of, and I would 
 like to hear of ony other woman in this town, 
 single or married or a widow, as has had 
 seven invitations to her tea in one day." 
 
 "The thing's unparalleled; but of course it 
 was to hear about you that they speired her?" 
 
 "Oh, of course, and also to get out of her 
 what the minister said to me. Ay, but can 
 ony of ye tell me what's the memorablist thing 
 about these invitations?" 
 
 "I dinna say I can, but it's something about 
 the grave." 
 
 "It's this, Snecky, that before Chirsty had 
 made up her mind whether to risk seven teas 
 in one day, I had become a humorist for life." 
 
 "Man, man, oh, losh!" 
 
 "Ay, and it's perfectly appalling to consider 
 as she was so excited about her invitations 
 that when I came down frae the cemetery she 
 never looked me in the face, and I had to 
 say to her, 'Chirsty Todd, do ye no see as 
 something has come ower me?' At that she 
 says, T notice you're making queer faces, but 
 I dinna ken what they mean.' 'They mean, 
 Chirsty Todd,' says I, 'as I am now a humor- 
 
88 A TILL.YLOSS SCANDAL, 
 
 tot/ to which she replies, 'Pick up that dish- 
 clout.' " 
 
 "Keep us all! But oh, man, a woman's mind 
 doesna easily rise to the sublime." 
 
 "It doesna, Pete, and 111 tell ye the reason; 
 it's because of women, that is to say, richt- 
 minded women, all having sich an adoration 
 for ministers." 
 
 "I dinna contradict ye, Tammas, but surely 
 that's a fearsome statement. Is ministers not 
 nearer the sublime than other folk?" 
 
 "They are, they are, and that's just it. 
 Ministers, ye may say, it always half road up 
 to the sublime. Weel, what's the result? 
 Women raises their een to gaze upon the sub- 
 lime, when they catch sicht of the minister, 
 and canna look ony higher." 
 
 "Sal, Tammas, you've solved it! But I war- 
 rant ye couldna have said that till ye became a 
 humorist?" 
 
 "No more than you could have said it yer- 
 sel', Robbie." 
 
 "Na, I dinna pretend I could have said it, 
 and even though I was to gang hame now 
 and say it in your very words, it wouldna have 
 the same show as when you say it." 
 
 "It would not, for ye would just blurt it 
 out, but them as watches me saying a humor- 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 89 
 
 ous thing notices the mental struggle before 
 the words comes up. Ay, the mental strug- 
 gle's like the servant in grand houses as puts 
 his head in at the door and cries, 'Leddies and 
 gentlemen, take your seats, for the dinner is 
 all but ready.' " 
 
 Early on Monday morning Haggart, the non 
 humorist, woke for the last time. The day was 
 moderately fine, but gave no indication that 
 anything remarkable was about to happen. 
 Lookaboutyou, it is true, says that he noticed 
 a queer stillness in the air, and Snecky Hobart 
 spoke of an unusually restless night, It is be- 
 lieved by some that the cocks of Tillyloss did 
 not crow that morning. But none of these 
 phenomena were noticed until it became nat- 
 ural to search the memory for them, and Hag- 
 gart himself always said that it was a common 
 day. The fact, I suppose, is that an uncom- 
 mon day was not needed, for here was Hag- 
 gart and there was the cemetery. Nature 
 never wastes her materials. 
 
 Haggart was elated no doubt, but so would 
 any man have been in the circumstances. For 
 the last time Haggart, the non-humorist, put 
 off cleaning his boots for another day. For 
 the last time he combed his hair without 
 studying the effect in the piece of glass that 
 
90 A TTLLYLOSS SCANDAL 
 
 was glued to the wall. Never again would the 
 Haggart who briskly descended his outside 
 stair, forgetting to shut the door, enter that 
 room in which Chirsty was already baking 
 bannocks. It was a new Haggart who would 
 return presently, Haggart of Haggart's Roady, 
 Haggart of Thrums, in short, Haggart the hu- 
 morist. 
 
 The last person to speak to Haggart, the 
 non-humorist, was James Spens, the last to see 
 him was Sanders Landels. Jamie met him at 
 the foot of Tillyloss, and Sanders passed him 
 on the burying-ground brae. Both were ordi- 
 nary persons, and they never distinguished 
 themselves again. 
 
 It was not his grave that made Haggart a 
 humorist, but the gravestone. Two years 
 earlier he had erected a tombstone to the mem- 
 ory of his relatives, but it had never struck 
 him that he would some day be able to read 
 his own fate on it. The grave is to the right 
 of the entrance to the cemetery, almost exactly 
 under the favorite seat known as the Bower, 
 and being at the bend of the path it comes 
 suddenly into view. Haggart walked eagerly 
 along the path, an ordinary man upon the 
 whole; then all at once ... He looked ... He 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL 91 
 
 looked again. This is what he read: 
 
 THIS STONE WAS ERECTED BY 
 
 THOMAS HAGGART 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF PETER HAGGART, 
 
 FATHER OF THE SAID THOMAS, 
 
 WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE, JAN. 7, 1825. 
 
 ALSO HERE LIES JEAN LINN, OR HAGGART, 
 
 MOTHER OF THE SAID THOMAS, 
 
 DIED 1828. 
 
 ALSO JEAN HAGGART, 
 
 SISTER OF THE SAID THOMAS, 
 
 DIED 1829. 
 
 ALSO ANDREW HAGGART, 
 
 BROTHER OF THE SAID THOMAS, 
 
 DIED 1831. 
 
 ALSO THE SAID THOMAS HIMSELF, 
 
 DIED 1834. 
 
 Haggart sat down on the grave. In Thrums 
 common folk were doing common things — 
 weaving, feeding the hens, supping porridge, 
 carting peats. 
 
 Haggart sat on the grave. In Thrums they 
 were thinking of their webs, of their dinner, 
 of well-scrubbed floors, of their love affairs. 
 
 But Haggart sat on the grave, and a pot 
 began to boil. He has told us what happened. 
 Down in his inside something was roaring, and 
 every moment the noise increased. He breathed 
 
92 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL, 
 
 with difficulty. He was as a barrel swelling 
 but held in by hoops of iron. He rose to his 
 feet, for his tongue was hot and there was a 
 hissing in his throat, and the iron hoops 
 pressed more and more tightly. Suddenly the 
 hissing ceased, and he stood as still as salt. 
 The roaring far down died away. All at once 
 he was tilted to the side, the hoops burst, and 
 he began to laugh. The pot was boiling. Hag- 
 gart was a humorist. 
 
 As soon as he realized what had happened 
 Haggart returned to Tillyloss. The first to see 
 him was Tibbie Robbie, the first to speak to 
 him was William Lamb, the first to notice the 
 change was Snecky Hobart. 
 
 I only undertook to tell how Haggart became 
 a humorist, and here therefore my story ends. 
 I have shown how a lamp was lit in Thrums, 
 but not how it burned. Perhaps if I followed 
 Haggart to his end, as I should like to do, to 
 the time when the lamp flickered and a room 
 in the Tenements grew dark, some who have 
 smiled at an old man's tale would leave a tear 
 behind them to a weaver's memory. 
 
 "Na," Haggart often said, "we winna touch 
 the gravestone. It'll come in handy some day." 
 
 His humor, appetizing from the first, ripened 
 with the years. For a time this was his com- 
 
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL. 93 
 
 merit on the tombstone — : 
 
 "Lads, lads, what a do we're preparing for 
 posterity." 
 
 Later in his life he said, 
 
 "It's almost cruel to cheat future generations 
 in this way." 
 
 His hair was white before he said, 
 
 "I dinna ken but what I should do the honest 
 thing, and have the date rubbed out." 
 
 And when there was a squeal in his voice, he 
 could add, 
 
 "No that it much matters."