“Don’t trouble, Geordie; I’ve read it all, and really there is an anguish displayed in the first line of that last verse that is quite touching.
‘Oh, Tibbie, Tibbie! Tibbie!! Tibbie!!!’
You come to a splendid climax with that last Tibbie. Shall I show it to my friend Willie?”
“Losh! man, no!”
“Or to Tibbie herself?”
“Loshie me! man, what can ye be thinkin’ o’?”
“But, Geordie, you don’t mean to say that verses containing so much sweetness and pathos as these are going to waste their sweetness in the desert air? I question if Bobbie Burns himself would have written anything like them.”
Geordie blushed again, and after much persuasion he agreed to write them out—when Sabbath came round—and permit Sandie to present them.
“Of course,” said Sandie, somewhat mischievously, “when I give Tibbie the poem, I will just brush the dew from her lips.”
“Oh, weel,” said Geordie resignedly, “I canna help that. You’ll do as you like about it.”