By J. M. Barrie
For two years it had been notorious in the square that Sam'l Dickie was thinking
of courting T'nowhead's Bell, and that if Little Sanders Elshioner (which is the
Thrums pronunciation of Alexander Alexander) went in for her, he might prove a
formidable rival. Sam'l was a weaver in the tenements, and Sanders a coal-
carter, whose trade-mark was a bell on his horse's neck that told when coal was
coming. Being something of a public man, Sanders had not, perhaps, so high a
social position as Sam'l, but he had succeeded his father on the coal-cart, while
the weaver had already tried several trades. It had always been against Sam'l,
too, that once when the kirk was vacant he had advised the selection of the third
minister who preached for it on the ground that it became expensive to pay a
large number of candidates. The scandal of the thing was hushed up, out of
respect for his father, who was a God-fearing man, but Sam'l was known by it in
Lang Tammas's circle. The coal-carter was called Little Sanders to distinguish
him from his father, who was not much more than half his size. He had grown up
with the name, and its inapplicability now came home to nobody. Sam'l's mother
had been more far-seeing than Sanders's. Her man had been called Sammy all
his life because it was the name he got as a boy, so when their eldest son was
born she spoke of him as Sam'l while still in the cradle. The neighbours imitated
her, and thus the young man had a better start in life than had been granted to
Sammy, his father.
It was Saturday evening—the night in the week when Auld Licht young men fell
in love. Sam'l Dickie, wearing a blue glengarry bonnet with a red ball on the top,
came to the door of the one-story house in the tenements, and stood there
wriggling, for he was in a suit of tweed for the first time that week, and did not
feel at one with them. When his feeling of being a stranger to himself wore off, he
looked up and down the road, which straggles between houses and gardens, and
then, picking his way over the puddles, crossed to his father's hen-house and sat
down on it. He was now on his way to the square.
Eppie Fargus was sitting on an adjoining dyke knitting stockings, and Sam'l
looked at her for a time.
"Is't yersel', Eppie?" he said at last.
"It's a' that," said Eppie.
"Hoo's a' wi' ye?" asked Sam'l.
"We're juist aff an' on," replied Eppie, cautiously.
There was not much more to say, but as Sam'l sidled off the hen-house he
murmured politely, "Ay, ay." In another minute he would have been fairly started,
but Eppie resumed the conversation.
"Sam'l," she said, with a twinkle in her eye, "ye can tell Lisbeth Fargus I'll likely
be drappin' in on her aboot Mununday or Teisday."
Lisbeth was sister to Eppie, and wife of Tammas McQuhatty, better known as
T'nowhead, which was the name of his farm. She was thus Bell's mistress.
Sam'l leaned against the hen-house as if all his desire to depart had gone.
