LOST ILLUSIONS

From ‘Sentimental Tommy’

To-morrow came, and with it two eager little figures rose and gulped their porridge, and set off to see Thrums.  They were dressed in the black clothes Aaron Latta had bought for them in London, and they had agreed just to walk, but when they reached the door and saw the tree-tops of the Den they—­they ran.  Would you not like to hold them back?  It is a child’s tragedy.

They went first into the Den, and the rocks were dripping wet, all the trees save the firs were bare, and the mud round a tiny spring pulled off one of Elspeth’s boots.

“Tommy,” she cried, quaking, “that narsty puddle can’t not be the Cuttle Well, can it?”

“No, it ain’t,” said Tommy, quickly, but he feared it was.

“It’s c-c-colder here than London,” Elspeth said, shivering, and Tommy was shivering too, but he answered, “I’m—­I’m—­I’m warm.”

The Den was strangely small, and soon they were on a shabby brae, where women in short gowns came to their doors and men in night-caps sat down on the shafts of their barrows to look at Jean Myles’s bairns.

“What does yer think?” Elspeth whispered, very doubtfully.

“They’re beauties,” Tommy answered, determinedly.

Presently Elspeth cried, “Oh, Tommy, what a ugly stair!  Where is the beauty stairs as it wore outside for show?”

This was one of them, and Tommy knew it.  “Wait till you see the west town end,” he said, bravely:  “it’s grand.”  But when they were in the west town end, and he had to admit it, “Wait till you see the square,” he said, and when they were in the square, “Wait,” he said, huskily, “till you see the town-house.”  Alas, this was the town-house facing them, and when they knew it, he said, hurriedly, “Wait till you see the Auld Licht kirk.”

They stood long in front of the Auld Licht kirk, which he had sworn was bigger and lovelier than St. Paul’s, but—­well, it is a different style of architecture, and had Elspeth not been there with tears in waiting, Tommy would have blubbered.  “It’s—­it’s littler than I thought,” he said, desperately, “but—­the minister, oh, what a wonderful big man he is!”

“Are you sure?” Elspeth squeaked.

“I swear he is.”

The church door opened and a gentleman came out, a little man, boyish in the back, with the eager face of those who live too quickly.  But it was not at him that Tommy pointed reassuringly; it was at the monster church key, half of which protruded from his tail pocket and waggled as he moved, like the hilt of a sword.

Speaking like an old residenter, Tommy explained that he had brought his sister to see the church.  “She’s ta’en aback,” he said, picking out Scotch words carefully, “because it’s littler than the London kirks, but I telled her—­I telled her that the preaching is better.”

This seemed to please the stranger, for he patted Tommy on the head while inquiring, “How do you know that the preaching is better?”