“Man, he kissed me.  Lads had kissed me afore that night, but never since first I went wi’ Aaron Latta to the Cuttle Well.  Aaron hadna done it, but I was never to let none do it again except him.  So when your father did it I struck him, but ahint the redness that came ower his face, I saw his triumphing laugh, and he whispered that he liked me for the blow.  He said, ’I prefer the sweer anes, and the more you struggle, my beauty, the better pleased I’ll be.’  Almost his hinmost words to me was, ‘I’ve been hearing of your Aaron, and that pleases me too!’ I fired up at that and telled him what I thought of him, but he said, ’If you canna abide me, what made you dance wi’ me so often?’ and, oh, laddie, that’s a question that has sung in my head since syne.

“I’ve telled you that we found out wha he was, and ’deed he made no secret of it.  Up to the time he was twal year auld he had been a kent face in that part, for his mither was a Cullew woman called Mag Sandys, ay, and a single woman.  She was a hard ane too, for when he was twelve year auld he flung out o’ the house saying he would ne’er come back, and she said he shouldna run awa’ wi’ thae new boots on, so she took the boots off him and let him go.

“He was a grown man when more was heard o’ him, and syne stories came saying he was at Redlintie, playing queer games wi’ his father.  His father was gauger there, that’s exciseman, a Mr. Cray, wha got his wife out o’ Thrums, and even when he was courting her (so they say) had the heart to be ower chief wi’ this other woman.  Weel, Magerful Tam, as he was called through being so masterful, cast up at Redlintie frae none kent where, gey desperate for siller, but wi’ a black coat on his back, and he said that all he wanted was to be owned as the gauger’s son.  Mr. Cray said there was no proof that he was his son, and syne the queer sport began.  Your father had noticed he was like Mr. Cray, except in the beard, and so he had his beard clippit the same, and he got hand o’ some weel-kent claethes o’ the gauger’s that had been presented to a poor body, and he learned up a’ the gauger’s tricks of speech and walking, especially a droll w’y he had o’ taking snuff and syne flinging back his head.  They were as like as buckies after that, and soon there was a town about it, for one day ladies would find that they had been bowing to the son thinking he was the father, and the next they wouldna speak to the father, mistaking him for the son; and a report spread to the head office o’ the excise that the gauger of Redlintie spent his evenings at a public house, singing ‘The De’il’s awa’ wi’ the Exciseman.’  Tam drank nows and nans, and it ga’e Mr. Cray a turn to see him come rolling yont the street, just as if it was himsel’ in a looking-glass.  He was a sedate-living man now, but chiefly because his wife kept him in good control, and this sight brought back auld times so vive to him, that he a kind of mistook which ane he was, and took