“Oh, my! here it is already,” thought Erchie. “If that laddie o’ oors kent the hertbrek he was to his mither,nI wonder wad he bide sae lang awa’.”
“Yes, I mind, Jinnet; I mind fine. Whit for need ye be askin’? As I was sayin’, it’s aye in the common streets that things is happenin’ that’s worth lookin’ at, if ye’re game for fun. It’s like travellin’ on the railway; if ye gang first-cless, the wey I did yince to Yoker by mistake, ye micht as weel be in a hearse for a’ ye see or hear; but gang third and ye’ll aye find something to keep ye cheery if it’s only fifteen chaps standin’ on yer corns gaun to a fitba’-match, or a man in the corner o’ the cairrage wi’ a mooth-harmonium playin’ a’ the wye.”
“Oh! Erchie, look at the puir wean,” said Jinnet, turning to glance after a woman with an infant in her arms. “Whit a shame bringin’ oot weans on a nicht like this! Its face is blae wi’ the cauld.”
“Och! never mind the weans,” said her husband; “if ye were to mind a’ the weans ye see in Gleska, ye wad hae a bonnie job o’t.”
“But jist think on the puir wee smout, Erchie. Oh, dear me! there’s anither yin no’ three months auld, I’ll wager. It’s a black-burnin’ shame. It should be hame snug and soond in its wee bed. Does’t no’ mind ye o’ Willy when I took him first to his grannie’s?”
Her husband growled to himself, and hurried his step; but that night there seemed to be a procession of women with infants in arms in New City Road, and Jinnet’s heart was wrung at every crossing.
“I thocht it was pan-drops ye cam’ oot for, or conversation- losengers,” he protested at last; “and here ye’re greetin’ even-on aboot a wheen weans that’s no’ oor fault.”
“Ye’re a hard-herted monster, so ye are,” said his wife indignantly.
“Of course I am,” he confessed blythely. “I’ll throw aff a’ disguise and admit my rale name’s Blue-beard, but don’t tell the polis on me. Hard-herted monster—I wad need to be wi’ a wife like you, that canna see a wean oot in the street at nicht withoot the drap at yer e’e. The weans is maybe no’ that bad aff: the nicht air’s no’ waur nor the day air: maybe when they’re oot here they’ll no’ mind they’re hungry.”
“Oh, Erchie! see that puir wee lame yin! God peety him!—I maun gie him a penny,” whispered Jinnet, as a child in rags stopped before a jeweller’s window to look in on a magic world of silver cruet-stands and diamond rings and gold watches.