Elspeth’s money lasted till four o’clock.  For Aaron, almost the only man in Thrums who shunned the revels that day, she bought a gingerbread house; and the miraculous powder which must be taken on a sixpence was to make Blinder see again, but unfortunately he forgot about putting it on the sixpence.  And of course there was something for a certain boy.  Grizel had completed her purchases by five o’clock, when Tommy was still heavy with threepence halfpenny.  They included a fluffy pink shawl, she did not say for whom, but the Painted Lady wore it afterwards, and for herself another doll.

“But that doll’s leg is broken,” Tommy pointed out.

“That was why I bought it,” she said warmly, “I feel so sorry for it, the darling,” and she carried it carefully so that the poor thing might suffer as little pain as possible.

Twice they rushed home for hasty meals, and were back so quickly that Tommy’s shadow strained a muscle in turning with him.  Night came on, and from a hundred strings stretched along stands and shows there now hung thousands of long tin things like trumpets.  One burning paper could set a dozen of these ablaze, and no sooner were they lit than a wind that had been biding its time rushed in like the merriman, making the lamps swing on their strings, so that the flaring lights embraced, and from a distance Thrums seemed to be on fire.

Even Grizel was willing to hold Tommy’s hand now, and the three could only move this way and that as the roaring crowd carried them.  They were not looking at the Muckley, they were part of it, and at last Thrums was all Tommy’s fancy had painted it.  This intoxicated him, so that he had to scream at intervals, “We’re here, Elspeth, I tell you, we’re here!” and he became pugnacious and asked youths twice his size whether they denied that he was here, and if so, would they come on.  In this frenzy he was seen by Miss Ailie, who had stolen out in a veil to look for Gavinia, but just as she was about to reprove him, dreadful men asked her was she in search of a lad, whereupon she fled home and barred the door, and later in the evening warned Gavinia, through the key-hole, taking her for a roystering blade, that there were policemen in the house, to which the astounding reply of Gavinia, then aged twelve, was, “No sic luck.”

With the darkness, too, crept into the Muckley certain devils in the color of the night who spoke thickly and rolled braw lads in the mire, and egged on friends to fight and cast lewd thoughts into the minds of the women.  At first the men had been bashful swains.  To the women’s “Gie me my faring, Jock,” they had replied, “Wait, Jean, till I’m fee’d,” but by night most had got their arles, with a dram above it, and he who could only guffaw at Jean a few hours ago had her round the waist now, and still an arm free for rough play with other kimmers.  The Jeans were as boisterous as the Jocks, giving them leer for leer, running from them