Such is a sample of Tommy, but Elspeth was sly also, if in a smaller way, and it was she who said:  “There ain’t nothin’ in the bed, is there, Tommy!” This duplicity made her uneasy, and she added, behind her teeth, “Maybe there is,” and then, “O God, I knows as there is.”

But as the great moment drew near there were no more questions; two children were staring at the clock and listening intently for the peal of a bell nearly five hundred miles away.

The clock struck.  “Whisht!  It’s time, Elspeth!  They’ve begun!  Come on!”

A few minutes afterwards Mrs. Sandys was roused by a knock at the door, followed by the entrance of two mysterious figures.  The female wore a boy’s jacket turned outside in, the male a woman’s bonnet and a shawl, and to make his disguise the more impenetrable he carried a poker in his right hand.  They stopped in the middle of the floor and began to recite, rather tremulously,

Get up, good wife, and binna sweir,
And deal your bread to them that’s here. 
For the time will come when you’ll be dead,
And then you’ll need neither ale nor bread.

Mrs. Sandys had started, and then turned piteously from them; but when they were done she tried to smile, and said, with forced gayety, that she saw they were guisers, and it was a fine night, and would they take a chair.  The male stranger did so at once, but the female said, rather anxiously:  “You are sure as you don’t know who we is?” Their hostess shook her head, and then he of the poker offered her three guesses, a daring thing to do, but all went well, for her first guess was Shovel and his old girl; second guess, Before and After; third guess, Napoleon Buonaparte and the Auld Licht minister.  At each guess the smaller of the intruders clapped her hands gleefully, but when, with the third, she was unmuzzled, she putted with her head at Mrs. Sandys and hugged her, screaming, “It ain’t none on them; it’s jest me, mother, it’s Elspeth!” and even while their astounded hostess was asking could it be true, the male conspirator dropped his poker noisily (to draw attention to himself) and stood revealed as Thomas Sandys.

Wasn’t it just like Thrums, wasn’t it just the very, very same?  Ah, it was wonderful, their mother said, but, alas, there was one thing wanting:  she had no Hogmanay to give the guisers.

Had she not?  What a pity, Elspeth!  What a pity, Tommy!  What might that be in the bed, Elspeth?  It couldn’t not be their Hogmanay, could it, Tommy?  If Tommy was his mother he would look and see.  If Elspeth was her mother she would look and see.

Her curiosity thus cunningly aroused, Mrs. Sandys raised the coverlet of the bed and—­there were three bridies, an oatmeal cake, and a hunk of kebbock.  “And they comed from Thrums!” cried Elspeth, while Tommy cried, “Petey and the others got a lot sent from Thrums, and I bought the bridies from them, and they gave me the bannock and the kebbock for nuthin’!” Their mother did not utter the cry of rapture which Tommy expected so confidently that he could have done it for her; instead, she pulled her two children toward her, and the great moment was like to be a tearful rather than an ecstatic one, for Elspeth had begun to whimper, and even Tommy—­but by a supreme effort he shouldered reality to the door.