She lived far away in a town which he had wandered in the days when
his blood ran hot, and they became engaged. Unfortunately, however,
Tammy forgot her name, and he never knew the address; so there the
affair ended, to his silent grief. He admitted himself, over his
snuff-mull of an evening, that he was a very ordinary character, but
a certain halo of horror was cast over the whole family by their
connection with little Joey Sutie, who was pointed at in Thrums as
the laddie that whistled when he went past the minister. Joey became
a pedler, and was found dead one raw morning dangling over a high
wall within a few miles of Thrums. When climbing the dyke his pack
had slipped back, the strap round his neck, and choked him.

You could generally tell an Auld Licht in Thrums when you passed
him, his dull, vacant face wrinkled over a heavy wob. He wore tags
of yarn round his trousers beneath the knee, that looked like
ostentatious garters, and frequently his jacket of corduroy was put
on beneath his waistcoat. If he was too old to carry his load on his
back, he wheeled it on a creaking barrow, and when he met a friend
they said, "Ay, Jeames," and "Ay, Davit," and then could think of
nothing else. At long intervals they passed through the square,
disappearing or coming into sight round the town-house which stands
on the south side of it, and guards the entrance to a steep brae
that leads down and then twists up on its lonely way to the county
town. I like to linger over the square, for it was from an upper
window in it that I got to know Thrums. On Saturday nights, when the
Auld Licht young men came into the square dressed and washed to look
at the young women errand-going, and to laugh some time afterward to
each other, it presented a glare of light; and here even came the
cheap jacks and the Fair Circassian, and the showman, who, besides
playing "The Mountain Maid and the Shepherd's Bride," exhibited part