“But, Grizel, I should have married,” he told her.  “The chief lesson my life has taught me is that they are poor critturs—­the men who don’t marry.”

“If you had married,” she said, “you might never have been able to help me.”

“It is you who have helped me,” he replied.  “God sent the child; He is most reluctant to give any of us up.  Ay, Grizel, that’s what my life has taught me, and it’s all I can leave to you.”  The last he saw of her, she was holding his hand, and her eyes were dry, her teeth were clenched; but there was a brave smile upon her face, for he had told her that it was thus he would like to see her at the end.  After his death, she continued to live at the old house; he had left it to her ("I want it to remain in the family,” he said), with all his savings, which were quite sufficient for the needs of such a manager.  He had also left her plenty to do, and that was a still sweeter legacy.

And the other Jacobites, what of them?  Hi, where are you, Corp?  Here he comes, grinning, in his spleet new uniform, to demand our tickets of us.  He is now the railway porter.  Since Tommy left Thrums “steam” had arrived in it, and Corp had by nature such a gift for giving luggage the twist which breaks everything inside as you dump it down that he was inevitably appointed porter.  There was no travelling to Thrums without a ticket.  At Tilliedrum, which was the junction for Thrums, you showed your ticket and were then locked in.  A hundred yards from Thrums.  Corp leaped upon the train and fiercely demanded your ticket.  At the station he asked you threateningly whether you had given up your ticket.  Even his wife was afraid of him at such times, and had her ticket ready in her hand.

His wife was one Gavinia, and she had no fear of him except when she was travelling.  To his face she referred to him as a doited sumph, but to Grizel pleading for him she admitted that despite his warts and quarrelsome legs he was a great big muckle sonsy, stout, buirdly well set up, wise-like, havering man.  When first Corp had proposed to her, she gave him a clout on the head; and so little did he know of the sex that this discouraged him.  He continued, however, to propose and she to clout him until he heard, accidentally (he woke up in church), of a man in the Bible who had wooed a woman for seven years, and this example he determined to emulate; but when Gavinia heard of it she was so furious that she took him at once.  Dazed by his good fortune, he rushed off with it to his aunt, whom he wearied with his repetition of the great news.

“To your bed wi’ you,” she said, yawning.

“Bed!” cried Corp, indignantly.  “And so, auntie, says Gavinia, ‘Yes,’ says she, ‘I’ll hae you.’  Those were her never-to-be-forgotten words.”

“You pitiful object,” answered his aunt.  “Men hae been married afore now without making sic a stramash.”

“I daursay,” retorted Corp; “but they hinna married Gavinia.”  And this is the best known answer to the sneer of the cynic.