"Tutt!"
"Ye're gaun up to sleep beside her, and do ye think ye'll never brik lair?"
"Tutt!"
"She's a bonny burd yon, Tam, ye maun tak care."
"Tutts!"
Well, up I went the next night to sleep in a bed that stood side by side, or rather end by end, with that of Kell. Oh I was so terrified for her, or for having any communication with her, that I would not speak a word even when she spoke to me, but covered myself over the head with the bed-clothes, and lay puffing till I was like to choak for want of breath. I did not sleep well at all. I could not sleep, for she was always yawning, and then saying, "Heigh-ho!" and then hushing the child to sleep. The next night I ventured to lye with my head out from beneath the clothes, unless when she spoke, which alarmed me exceedingly; and so I did the next night again, behaving myself with great magnanimity. At length I came to that pass, that when she spake to me I did not creep down beneath the bed-clothes, but only made a great bustle and flinging as if I had been hiding myself. This practice of deception I continued for several nights, always making more and more pouncing and scraping every time she addressed me. She laughed at me, and seemed highly amused, which made me still the worse. At length she said one night, "Pray do not creep through the house for fright; what makes you so afraid of me? what ill do you think I will do to you? Heigh-ho, Nosey! I wish the bogle may not come to-night. I am afraid it will come, for I thought I heard it. Look that it do not rise at the back of your bed, for that is a very dangerous place. If it come, Nosey, I must either come in beside you, or you must come in beside me."—"Tutts!" said I, and that was my first word of courting; the first syllable that I spoke to Kell in that luckless loft. I said, "Tutts!"
I suspected no evil intention on the part of my kind and indulgent master, and far less on that of Kell; indeed, how could I suspect either? One day he said to me in the fields, "I do not know what to do about you and that wench Kell: for both your sakes I believe I must separate you. She is fallen in love with you, quite over head and ears, and has been complaining to our dame of your unkindness to her. We have a great regard for the girl, and cannot part with her,—but, out of respect for you both, you must be separated. I will, however, trust you together until next week; and if she do not complain any more, you may remain where you are; but I suppose I will be obliged to part with you then, though against my will."
This was a terrible stound to my heart, and shewed my master's masterly policy; for, notwithstanding of all my pretended aversion to the company of women, and to that of pretty Kell in particular, I would not have been parted from her at that time for all the world, not even for all the beef and bacon that was in it. I did not know well how to make up matters with her so as to retain my place, but I thought I would try. So that night I sat down on my own bed-side with my clothes on, and scratched my head, and beat with my bare heel against the loft; but she had lost all hope of gaining me to the measures agreed on between her and her master, and took no heed of me till I was obliged to speak first myself, when the following highly interesting dialogue passed between us:
"I'm unco feared the bogle come the night, Kell."
"So am I!"