Chapter 9 - Page 2

Shrink from the rude men no more, they are soon
to forget you, so soon! It is a heavy door, but soon you will have
pushed it open for the last time. The girls will babble still, but not
to you, not of you. Cheer up, the work is nearly done. Her beautiful!
Come, beautiful, strength for a few more days, and then you can leave
the key of the leaden door behind you, and on your way home you may kiss
your hand joyously to the weary streets, for you are going to die.

Tommy and Elspeth had been to the foot of the stair many times to look
for her before their mother came back that evening, yet when she
re-entered her home, behold, they were sitting calmly on the fender as
if this were a day like yesterday or to-morrow, as if Tommy had not been
on a business visit to Thrums Street, as if the hump on the bed did not
mean that a glorious something was hidden under the coverlet. True,
Elspeth would look at Tommy imploringly every few minutes, meaning that
she could not keep it in much longer, and then Tommy would mutter the
one word "Bell" to remind her that it was against the rules to begin
before the Thrums eight-o'clock bell rang. They also wiled away the time
of waiting by inviting each other to conferences at the window where
these whispers passed--

"She ain't got a notion, Tommy."

"Dinna look so often at the bed."

"If I could jest get one more peep at it!"

"No, no; but you can put your hand on the top of it as you go by."

The artfulness of Tommy lured his unsuspecting mother into telling how
they would be holding Hogmanay in Thrums to-night, how cartloads of
kebbock cheeses had been rolling into the town all the livelong day ("Do
you hear them, Elspeth?"), and in dark closes the children were already
gathering, with smeared faces and in eccentric dress, to sally forth as
guisers at the clap of eight, when the ringing of a bell lets Hogmanay
loose. ("You see, Elspeth?") Inside the houses men and women were
preparing (though not by fasting, which would have been such a good way
that it is surprising no one ever thought of it) for a series of visits,
at every one of which they would be offered a dram and kebbock and
bannock, and in the grander houses "bridies," which are a sublime kind
of pie.

Tommy had the audacity to ask what bridies were like. And he could not
dress up and be a guiser, could he, mother, for the guisers sang a song,
and he did not know the words? What a pity they could not get bridies to
buy in London, and learn the song and sing it. But of course they could
not! ("Elspeth, if you tumble off the fender again, she'll guess.")

Such is a sample of Tommy, but Elspeth was sly