The Lord of the Spittal and handsome Captain Body (whose being “out” made all the women anxious) marched through the Den, flapping their wings at the head of a fearsome retinue, and the Thrums folk looked so glum at them that gay Captain Body said he should kiss every lass who did not cheer for Charlie, and none cheered, but at the same time none ran away.  Few in Thrums cared a doit for Charlie, but some hung on behind this troop till there was no turning back for them, and one of these was Buchan.  He forced his wife to give Captain Body a white rose from her bush by the door, but a thorn in it pricked the gallant, and the blood from his fingers fell on the bush, and from that year it grew red roses.

“If you dinna believe me,” Blinder said, “look if the roses is no red on the bush at Pyotdykes, which was a split frae Buchan’s, and speir whether they’re no named the blood rose.”

“I believe you,” Tommy would say breathlessly:  “go on.”

Captain Body was back in the Den by and by, but he had no thought of preeing lasses’ mouths now.  His face was scratched and haggard and his gay coat torn, and when he crawled to the Cuttle Well he caught some of the water in his bonnet and mixed meal with it, stirring the precious compound with his finger and using the loof of his hand as a spoon.  Every stick of furniture Buchan and the other Thrums rebels possessed was seized by the government and rouped in the market-place of Thrums, but few would bid against the late owners, for whom the things were secretly bought back very cheaply.

To these and many similar stories Tommy listened open-mouthed, seeing the scene far more vividly than the narrator, who became alarmed at his quick, loud breathing, and advised him to forget them and go back to his lessons.  But his lessons never interested Tommy, and he would go into the Den instead, and repeat Blinder’s legends, with embellishments which made them so real that Corp and Elspeth and Grizel were afraid to look behind them lest the spectre of Captain Body should be standing there, leaning on a ghostly sword.

At such times Elspeth kept a firm grip of Tommy’s hand, but one evening as they all ran panic-stricken from some imaginary alarm, she lost him near the Cuttle Well, and then, as it seemed to her, the Den became suddenly very dark and lonely.  At first she thought she had it to herself, but as she stole timidly along the pink path she heard voices, and she cried “Tommy!” joyously.  But no answer came, so it could not be Tommy.  Then she thought it must be a pair of lovers, but next moment she stood transfixed with fear, for it was the Painted Lady, who was coming along the path talking aloud to herself.  No, not to herself—­to someone she evidently thought was by her side; she called him darling and other sweet names, and waited for his replies and nodded pleased assent to them, or pouted at them, and terrified Elspeth knew that she was talking to the man who never came.