CHAPTER VI.
SOME SCOTCH CUSTOMS
Our little Scotch cousins do not make so much of Christmas as the American children. Their great holiday is the New Year. On the eve of "Hogmanay," as it is called, everybody stays up to welcome the New Year, with great jollification.
"Do you think that Uncle Clarke will get here in time?" Don asked for the hundredth time on New Year's eve. The Gordons had been expecting him all the week, but he had not yet come, and Don went about grumbling that "Hogmanay" would be no fun at all without Uncle Clarke.
The MacPhersons and the Gordons were all sitting in the library of Kelvin House, to see the old year out and the new year in. A table was spread with cakes and many other good things to eat, and the children had been wondering all the evening who would make the "first-footing."
A "first-footing" is made by the first person who enters the house after the stroke of midnight; and if he wishes well to the household, he should bring a cake of shortbread with him.
There is always great hilarity at a "first-footing." Everybody kept their eyes on the clock, and Doctor Gordon pulled out his watch every little while to be sure that the clock had not stopped.
Just as the stroke of twelve rang out, all the bells of the city began to ring, and great shouts went up from the throngs of people who crowded the streets, and there was a great kissing and shaking of hands among the happy households who had assembled for the ceremony.
In the midst of all the gaiety at Kelvin House the front door-bell rang. "Oh! there's our 'first-footing,'" shouted the children in one voice, and they all rushed to the door. Who should it be but Uncle Clarke, with a big cake of shortbread in his arms!