"Wha else?" said Tammock, reaching forward to get a light for his pipe from the hearth where a little glowing knot had fallen, puffing out sappy wheezes as it burned. He looked slyly up at the mistress as he did so.
"Tammock," said she, standing with her arms wide set, and her hands on that part of the onstead that appears to have been built for them, "wad hae ye mind that I was but a lassock when ye cam' knoitin' an' hirplin' alang the Ayrshire road frae Dalmellington."
"I mind brawly," said Tammock, drawing bravely away. "Ay, Mary, ye were a strappin' wean. Ye said ye wadna hae me; I mind that weel. That was the way ye fell in wi' Drumquhat, when I gied up thochts o' ye mysel'."
"You gie up thochts o' me, Tammock! Was there ever siccan presumption? Ye'll no' speak that way in my hoose. Hoo daur ye? Saunders, hear till him. Wull ye sit there like a puddock on a post, an' listen to this—this Ayrshireman misca' your marriet wife, Alexander M'Quhirr? Shame till ye, man!"
My married wife was well capable of taking care of herself in anything that appertained to the strife of tongues. In the circumstances, therefore, I did not feel called upon to interfere.
"Ye can tak' a note o' the circumstance an' tell the minister the next time he comes owre," said I, dry as a mill-hopper.
She whisked away into the milk-house, taking the door after her as far as it would go with a flaff that brought a bowl, which had been set on its edge to dry, whirling off the dresser on to the stone floor.
When the wife came back, she paused before the fragments. We were sitting smoking very peacefully and wondering what was coming.
"Wha whammelt my cheeny bowl?" said Mistress M'Quhirr, in a tone which, had I not been innocent, would have made me take the stable.
"Wha gaed through that door last?" said I.