"I can never go back among them—no, never, never!" said Vara to herself again and again.
And already she saw the sidelong glance, the sneering word thrown over the shoulder, as the companions from whom she had held herself somewhat aloof reminded her of her mother's disgrace. "O father, father, come back to us—come back to us!" she cried over and over again till it became a prayer.
She sat with her hands before her face so long that little Hugh repeatedly came and stirred her arm, saying "What ails sister? Hugh Boy not an ill boy!"
Vara Kavannah's thoughts ran steadily on Liverpool, to which her father had gone to find work. She remembered having seen trains with carriages marked "Liverpool" starting from the rickety old station at the end of Princes Street. She knew that they went out by Merchiston and Calder. That must, therefore, be the way to Liverpool. Vara did not remember that it must also be the way to a great many other places, since many carriages with other superscriptions passed out the same way.
As it darkened in the little construction hut, Vara listlessly rose to set the room to rights, and to give the baby its bottle. Nothing now seemed any use, since her mother had come back into her life. Yet Vara did not cry, for that also was no use. She had lost her place at the works, or at least she could never go back any more. Her world was at an end.
Hugh Boy still lingered outside, though it was growing latish, and the swallows that darted in and out of the stacked rafters and piled squares of boards began one by one to disappear from the vaulted sky. Hugh was busy watering the plants, as he had seen Cleg do. And he kept one hand in his pocket and tried to whistle as like his model as possible. Vara was just laying the baby in its cot when she heard a scream of pain from Hugh at the door.
"Mercy me!" she said, "has the laddie tumbled and hurt himsel'?"
She flew to the open door, which was now no more than a dusky oblong of blue-grey. A pair of dark shapes stood in front of her. Little Hugh lay wailing on the ground. A hard clenched hand struck Vara on the mouth, as she held up her hands to shield the baby she had carried with her in her haste, and a harsh thick voice screamed accumulated curses at her.
"I hae gotten ye at last, ye scum, you that sets yourself up to be somebody. You that dresses in a hat and feather, devil sweep ye! Come your ways in, lad, and we will soon take the pride out of the likes o' her, the besom!"
The man hung back and seemed loth to have part in the shame. But Sal Kavannah seized him by the hand and dragged him forward.