The men fight (round-handed), the women fleicht or scold, in the form of a teapot--the handle fixed and the spout sawing the air.
A singular custom prevails here.
The maidens have only one sweetheart apiece!!! So the whole town is in pairs.
The courting is all done on Saturday night, by the lady's fire.

It is hard to keep out of a groove in which all the town is running; and the Johnstone had possessed, as mere property--a lad! She was so wealthy that few of them could pretend to aspire to her, so she selected for her chattel a young man called Willy Liston; a youth of an unhappy turn--he contributed nothing to hilarity, his face was a kill-joy--nobody liked him; for this female reason Christie distinguished him.
He found a divine supper every Saturday night in her house; he ate, and sighed! Christie fed him, and laughed at him.
Flucker ditto.
As she neither fed nor laughed at any other man, some twenty were bitterly jealous of Willy Liston, and this gave the blighted youth a cheerful moment or two.
But the bright alliance received a check some months before our tale.
Christie was _heluo librorum!_ and like others who have that taste, and can only gratify it in the interval of manual exercise, she read very intensely in her hours of study.

A book absorbed her.

She was like a leech on these occasions, _non missura cutem._ Even Jean Carnie, her co-adjutor or "neebor," as they call it, found it best to keep out of her way till the book was sucked.
One Saturday night Willy Liston's evil star ordained that a gentleman of French origin and Spanish dress, called Gil Blas, should be the Johnstone's companion.
Willy Liston arrived.
Christie, who had bolted the door, told him from the window, civilly enough, but decidedly, "She would excuse his company that night." "Vara weel," said Willy, and departed.
Next Saturday--no Willy came.
Ditto the next.

Willy was waiting the _amende._ Christie forgot to make it.
One day she was passing the boats, Willy beckoned her mysteriously; he led her to his boat, which was called "The Christie Johnstone"; by the boat's side was a paint pot and brush.
They had not supped together for five Saturdays.
Ergo, Mr.Liston had painted out the first four letters of "Christie," he now proceeded to paint out the fifth, giving her to understand, that, if she allowed the whole name to go, a letter every blank Saturday, her image would be gradually, but effectually, obliterated from the heart Listonian.
My reader has done what Liston did not, anticipate her answer.