but could enjoy no game of which Tommy was not the larger half.  Many times he deserted her for manlier joys, but though she was out of sight he could not forget her longing face, and soon he sneaked off to her; he upbraided her, but he stayed with her.  They bore with him for a time, but when they discovered that she had persuaded him (after prayer) to put back the spug’s eggs which he had brought home in triumph, then they drove him from their company, and for a long time afterwards his deadly enemy was the hard-hitting Corp Shiach.

Elspeth was not invited to attend the readings of “I Love My Love with an A,” perhaps because there were so many words in it that she had no concern with, but she knew they ended as the eight-o’clock bell began to ring, and it was her custom to meet Tommy a few yards from Aaron’s door.  Farther she durst not venture in the gloaming through fear of the Painted Lady, for Aaron’s house was not far from the fearsome lane that led to Double Dykes, and even the big boys who made faces at this woman by day ran from her in the dusk.  Creepy tales were told of what happened to those on whom she cast a blighting eye before they could touch cold iron, and Tommy was one of many who kept a bit of cold iron from the smithy handy in his pocket.  On his way home from the readings he never had occasion to use it, but at these times he sometimes met Grizel, who liked to do her shopping in the evenings when her persecutors were more easily eluded, and he forced her to speak to him.  Not her loneliness appealed to him, but that look of admiration she had given him when he was astride of Francie Crabb.  For such a look he could pardon many rebuffs; without it no praise greatly pleased him; he was always on the outlook for it.

“I warrant,” he said to her one evening, “you want to have some man-body to take care of you the way I take care of Elspeth.”

“No, I don’t,” she replied, promptly.

“Would you no like somebody to love you?”

“Do you mean kissing?” she asked.

“There’s better things in it than that,” he said guardedly; “but if you want kissing, I—­I—­Elspeth’ll kiss you.”

“Will she want to do it?” inquired Grizel, a little wistfully.

“I’ll make her do it,” Tommy said.

“I don’t want her to do it,” cried Grizel, and he could not draw another word from her.  However he was sure she thought him a wonder, and when next they met he challenged her with it.

“Do you not now?”

“I won’t tell you,” answered Grizel, who was never known to lie.

“You think I’m a wonder,” Tommy persisted, “but you dinna want me to know you think it.”

Grizel rocked her arms, a quaint way she had when excited, and she blurted out, “How do you know?”

The look he liked had come back to her face, but he had no time to enjoy it, for just then Elspeth appeared, and Elspeth’s jealousy was easily aroused.