“You will take something, Mr. Cortachy?”

“No, I thank you, ma’am.”

“A little ginger wine?”

“It agrees ill with me.”

“Then a little wh-wh-whiskey?”

“You are ower kind.”

“Then may I?”

“I am not heeding.”

“Perhaps, though, you don’t take?”

“I can take it or want it.”

“Is that enough?”

“It will do perfectly.”

“Shall I fill it up?”

“As you please, ma’am.”

Miss Ailie’s relationship to the magerful man may be remembered; she shuddered to think of it herself, for in middle-age she retained the mind of a young girl, but when duty seemed to call, this school-mistress could be brave, and she offered to give Elspeth her schooling free of charge.  Like the other two hers was a “mixed” school, but she did not want Tommy, because she had seen him in the square one day, and there was a leer on his face that reminded her of his father.

Another woman was less particular.  This was Mrs. Crabb, of the Tappit Hen, the Esther Auld whom Jean Myles’s letters had so frequently sent to bed.  Her Francie was still a pupil of Miss Ailie, and still he wore the golden hair, which, despite all advice, she would not crop.  It was so beautiful that no common boys could see it without wanting to give it a tug in passing, and partly to prevent this, partly to show how high she had risen in the social scale, Esther usually sent him to school under the charge of her servant lass.  She now proposed to Aaron that this duty should devolve on Tommy, and for the service she would pay his fees at the Hanky School.

“We maun all lend a hand to poor Jean’s bairns,” she said, with a gleam in her eye.  “It would have been well for her, Aaron, if she had married you.”

“Is that all you have to say?” asked the warper, who had let her enter no farther than the hallan.

“I would expect him to lift Francie ower the pools in wet weather; and it might be as well if he called him Master Francie.”

“Is that all?”

“Ay, I ask no more, for we maun all help Jean’s bairns.  If she could only look down, Aaron, and see her little velvets, as she called him, lifting my little corduroys ower the pools!”

Aaron flung open the door.  “Munt!” he said, and he looked so dangerous that she retired at once.  He sent Tommy to Ballingall’s, and accepted Miss Ailie’s offer for Elspeth, but this was an impossible arrangement, for it was known to the two persons primarily concerned that Elspeth would die if she was not where Tommy was.  The few boys he had already begun to know were at Cathro’s or Ballingall’s, and as they called Miss Ailie’s a lassie school he had no desire to attend it, but where he was there also must Elspeth be.  Daily he escaped from Ballingall’s and hid near the Dovecot, as Miss Ailie’s house was called, and every little while he gave vent to Shovel’s whistle, so that Elspeth might know of his proximity and be cheered.  Thrice was he carried back, kicking, to Ballingall’s by urchins sent in pursuit, stern ministers of justice on the first two occasions; but on the third they made him an offer:  if he would hide in Couthie’s hen-house they were willing to look for him everywhere else for two hours.