Erchie-puts down his ‘Weekly Mail,’ stifling a sigh and pocketing his spectacles. The night may be raw and wet, the streets full of mire, the kitchen more snug and clean and warm than any palace, but he never on such occasion says her nay. “You and your sweeties!” he exclaims, lacing his boots; “I’m shair ye never eat ony, in the kirk or onywhere else.”
“And whit dae ye th’ink I wad be buyin’ them for if it wasna to keep me frae gantin’ in the kirk when the sermon’s dreich?”
“Maybe for pappin’ at the cats in the back coort,” he retorts. “There’s ae thing certain shair, I never see ye eatin’ them.”
“Indeed, and ye’re richt,” she confesses. “I havena the teeth for them nooadays.”
“There’s naething wrang wi’ yer teeth, nor ony-thing else aboot ye that I can see,” her husband replies.
“Ye auld haver!” Jinnet will then cry, smiling. “It’s you that’s lost yer sicht, I’m thinkin’. I’m a done auld buddy, that’s whit I am, and that’s tellin’ ye. But haste ye and come awa’ for the sweeties wi’ me: whit’ll thae wee Wilson weans in the close say the morn if Mrs MacPherson hasna ony sweeties for them?”
They went along New City Road together, Erchie tall, lean, and a little round at the shoulders; his wife a little wee body, not reaching his shoulder, dressed, by-ordinar for her station and “ower young for her years,” as a few jealous neighbours say.
An unceasing drizzle blurred the street-lamps, the pavement was slippery with mud; a night for the hearth-side and slippered feet on the fender, yet the shops were thronged, and men and women crowded the thoroughfare or stood entranced before the windows.
“It’s a wonnerfu’ place, Gleska,” said Erchie. “There’s such diversion in’t if ye’re in the key for’t. If ye hae yer health and yer wark, and the weans is weel, ye can be as happy as a lord, and far happier. It’s the folk that live in the terraces where the nae stairs is, and sittin’ in their paurlours readin’ as hard’s onything to keep up wi’ the times, and naething to see oot the window but a plot o’ grass that’s no’ richt green, that gets tired o’ everything. The like o’ us, that stay up closes and hae nae servants, and can come oot for a daunder efter turnin’ the key in the door, hae the best o’t. Lord! there’s sae muckle to see—the cheeny-shops and the drapers, and the neighbours gaun for paraffin oil wi’ a bottle, and Duffy wi’ a new shepherd-tartan grauvit, and Lord Macdonald singin’ awa’ like a’ that at the Normal School, and———”
“Oh, Erchie! dae ye mind when Willie was at the Normal?” said Jinnet.