One day, however, when I was in the garden putting some rings on a fishing-wand, Johnny pushed by me, with no sign of recognition on his face.

I addressed him, and, after pausing undecidedly, he ignored me.

When he came to the door, instead of flinging it open and walking in, he knocked primly, which surprised me so much that I followed him.
"Is this whaur Mistress McQumpha lives ?" he asked, when Leeby, with a face ready to receive the minister himself, came at length to the door.
I knew that the gentility of the knock had taken both her and her mother aback.
"Hoots, Johnny," said Leeby, "what haver's this?
Come awa in." Johnny seemed annoyed.
"Is this whaur Mistress McQumpha lives ?" he repeated.
"Say 'at it is," cried Jess, who was quicker in the uptake than her daughter.
"Of course this is whaur Mistress McQumpha lives," Leeby then said, "as weel ye ken, for ye had yer dinner here no twa hours syne." "Then," said Johnny, "Mistress Tully's compliments to her, and would she kindly lend the christenin' robe, an' also the tea-tray, if the same be na needed ?" Having delivered his message as instructed, Johnny consented to sit down until the famous christening robe and the tray were ready, but he would not talk, for that was not in the bond.

Jess's sweet face beamed over the compliment Mrs.Tully, known on ordinary occasions as Jean McTaggart, had paid her, and, after Johnny had departed laden, she told me how the tray, which had a great bump in the middle, came into her possession.
"Ye've often heard me speak aboot the time when I was a lassie workin' at the farm o' the Bog?
Ay, that was afore me an' Hendry kent ane anither, an' I was as fleet on my feet in thae days as Leeby is noo.
It was Sam'l Fletcher 'at was the farmer, but he maun hae been gone afore you was mair than born.

Mebbe, though, ye ken 'at he was a terrible invalid, an' for the hinmost years o' his life he sat in a muckle chair nicht an' day.