"Na," said Hendry, who was shut up in the closet-bed, taking off his blacks, "I heard tell he wasna bidden."
"Yea, yea," said Jess, nodding to me significantly. "Ay, weel," she added, "we'll be hae'n Tibbie ower here on Saturday to deave's (weary us) to death aboot it."
Tibbie, Davit's wife, was sister to Marget, Pete's widow, and she generally did visit Jess on Saturday night to talk about Marget, who was fast becoming one of the most fashionable persons in Thrums. Tibbie was hopelessly plebeian1. She was none of your proud kind, and if I entered the kitchen when she was there she pretended not to see me, so that, if I chose, I might escape without speaking to the like of her. I always grabbed her hand, however, in a frank way.
On Saturday Tibbie made her appearance. From the rapidity of her walk, and the way she was sucking in her mouth, I knew that she had strange things to unfold. She had pinned a grey shawl about her shoulders, and wore a black mutch over her dangling2 grey curls.
"It's you, Tibbie," I heard Jess say, as the door opened.
Tibbie did not knock, not considering herself grand enough for ceremony, and indeed Jess would have resented her knocking. On the other hand, when Leeby visited Tibbie, she knocked as politely as if she were collecting for the precentor's present. All this showed that we were superior socially to Tibbie.
"Ay, hoo are ye, Jess?" Tibbie said.
"Muckle aboot it," answered Jess; "juist aff an' on; ay, an' hoo hae ye been yersel?"
"Ou," said Tibbie.
I wish I could write "ou" as Tibbie said it. With her it was usually a sentence in itself. Sometimes it was a mere3 bark, again it expressed indignation, surprise, rapture4; it might be a check upon emotion or a way of leading up to it, and often it lasted for half a minute. In this instance it was, I should say, an intimation that if Jess was ready Tibbie would begin.
"So Pete Lownie's gone," said Jess, whom I could not see from ben the house. I had a good glimpse of Tibbie, however, through the open doorways5. She had the armchair on the south side, as she would have said, of the fireplace.
"He's awa," assented6 Tibbie, primly7.
I heard the lid of the kettle dancing, and then came a prolonged "ou." Tibbie bent8 forward to whisper, and if she had anything terrible to tell I was glad of that, for when she whispered I heard her best. For a time only a murmur9 of words reached me, distant music with an "ou" now and again that fired Tibbie as the beating of his drum may rouse the martial10 spirit of a drummer. At last our visitor broke into an agitated11 whisper, and it was only when she stopped whispering, as she did now and again, that I ceased to hear her. Jess evidently put a question at times, but so politely (for she had on her best wrapper) that I did not catch a word.
"Though I should be struck deid this nicht," Tibbie whispered, and the sibilants hissed12 between her few remaining teeth, "I wasna sae muckle as speired to the layin' oot. There was Mysy Cruickshanks there, an' Kitty Wobster 'at was nae friends to the corpse13 to speak o', but Marget passed by me, me 'at is her ain flesh an' blood, though it mayna be for the like o' me to say it. It's gospel truth, Jess, I tell ye, when I say 'at, for all I ken14 officially, as ye micht say, Pete Lownie may be weel and hearty15 this day. If I was to meet Marget in the face I couldna say he was deid, though I ken 'at the wricht coffined
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