"Bob Scott."
"Well, Bob, I do wish you'd promise. We have such good times."
Bob looked sceptical.
"A whiles gang to Sabbath schules," he said, "juist till the swuree comes aff, and then A leave." His tone suggested that in his opinion Sabbath schools and good times were things far apart.
"I see. Well, we're having a Christmas-tree quite soon. You might try the class till then. You'll come some Sunday? That's good. Now, if I were you I would go home out of the rain."
Bob had resumed his whittling, and he looked carefully at his work as he said:
"I canna gang hame for ma faither: he's drunk, and he'll no' let's in."
"Have you had any dinner?"
"Uch, no. A'm no heedin' for't," with a fine carelessness.
Elizabeth tilted her umbrella over her shoulder the better to survey the situation. There was certainly little prospect of refreshment in this grey street which seemed to contain nothing but rain, but the sharp ting-ting of an electric tram passing in the street above brought her an idea, and she caught the boy's arm.
"Come on, Bob, and we'll see what we can get."
Two minutes brought them to a baker's shop, with very good-looking things in the window and a fat, comfortable woman behind the counter.
"Isn't this a horrible day, Mrs. Russel?" said Elizabeth. "And here's a friend of mine who wants warming up. What could you give him to eat, I wonder?"
Mrs. Russel beamed as if feeding little dirty ragged boys was just the thing she liked best to do.
"It's an awful day, as you say, Miss Seton, an' the boy's wet through. Whit would ye say to a hot tupp'ny pie an' a cup-o'-tea? The kettle's juist on the boil; I've been havin' a cup masel'—a body wants something to cheer them this weather." She laughed cheerily. "He could take it in at the back—there's a rare wee fire."
"That'll be splendid," said Elizabeth; "won't it Bob?"
"Ay," said Bob stolidly, but his little impudent starved face had an eager look.
Elizabeth saw him seated before the "rare wee fire" wolfing "tupp'ny pies," then she gathered up her collecting papers and prepared to go.
"Well! Good-bye, Bob; I shall see you some Sabbath soon. Where's that umbrella? It's a bad day for Zenana Missions, Mrs. Russel."
"Is that whit ye're at the day? I thought ye were doin' a bit o' home mission work."
She followed Elizabeth to the shop-door.
"Poor little chap!" said Elizabeth. "Give him as much as he can eat, will you?"—she slipped some money into her hand—"and put anything that's over into his pocket. I'm most awfully grateful to you, Mrs. Russel. It was too bad to plant him on you, but if people will go about looking so kind they're just asking to be put upon."
The rain was falling as if it would never tire. The street lamps had been lit, and made yellow blobs in the thick foggy atmosphere. The streets were slippery with that particular brand of greasy mud which Glasgow produces. "I believe I'll go straight home," thought Elizabeth.
She wavered for a moment, then: "I'll do Mrs. Martin and get the car at the corner of the street," she decided. "It's four o'clock, but I don't believe the woman will be tidied."
The surmise was only too correct. The door when Elizabeth reached it was opened by Mr. Martin—a gentleman of infinite leisure—who seemed uncertain what to do with her. Elizabeth tried to solve the difficulty by moving towards the kitchen but he gently headed her off until a voice from within cried, "Come in, if ye like, Miss Seton, but A'm strippit."
The situation was not as acute as it sounded. Mrs. Martin had removed her bodice, the better to comb her hair, and Elizabeth shuddered to see her lay the comb down beside a pat of butter, as she cried to her husband, "John, bring ma ither body here."
She was quite unabashed to be found thus in deshabille, and talked volubly the while she twisted up her hair and buttoned her "body." She was a round robin-like woman with, as Elizabeth put it, "the sweetest smile and the dirtiest house in Glasgow."
"An' how's Papa this wet weather?"
"Quite all right, thank you. And how are you?"
"Off and on, juist off and on. Troubled a lot with the boil, of course." (Elizabeth had to think for a minute before she realised this was English for "the bile.") "Many a day, Miss Seton, nothing'll lie." Mrs. Martin made a gesture indicating what happened, and continued: "Mr. Martin often says to me, 'Maggie,' he says 'ye're no' fit to work; let the hoose alane,' he says. Divn't ye, John?" she asked, turning to her husband, who had settled himself by the fire with an evening paper, and receiving a grunt in reply. "But, Miss Seton, there's no' a lazy bone in ma body and I canna see things go. I must be up an' doin': a hoose juist keeps a body at it."
"It does," agreed Elizabeth, trying not to see the unmade bed and the sink full of dirty dishes.
"An' whit are ye collectin' for the day? Women's Foreign Missions? 'Go ye into all the world.' We canna go oorsel's, but we can send oor money. Where's ma purse?"
She went over to the littered dresser and began to turn things over, until she discovered the purse lurking under a bag of buns and a paper containing half a pound of ham. Elizabeth stood up as a hint that the shilling might be forthcoming, but Mrs. Martin liked an audience, so she sat down on a chair and put a hand on each knee. "Mr. Seton said on Sunday we were to give as the Lord had prospered us. Weel, I canna say much aboot that, we're juist aye in the same bit, but as A often tell ma man, Miss Seton, we must a' help each other, for we're a' gaun the same road—mebbe the heathen tae, puir things!"
Mr. Martin grunted over his newspaper, and his wife continued: "There's John there—Mr. Martin, A'm meanin'—gits fair riled whiles aboot poalitics. He canna stand Tories by naething, they fair scunner him, but I juist say to him, 'John, ma man,' I says, 'let the Tories alane, for we're a' Homeward Bound.'"
Elizabeth stifled a desire to laugh, while Mr. Martin said with great conviction and some irrelevance, "Lyd George is the man."
"So he is," said his wife soothingly, "though A whiles think if he wud tak' a bit rest to hissel' it wud be a guid job for us a'."
"Well," said Elizabeth, opening her purse in an expectant way, "I must go, or I shall be late for tea."
"Here's yer shillun," said Mrs. Martin, rather with the air of presenting a not quite deserved tip.
"An' how's wee David? Yon's a rale wee favourite o' mine. Are ye gaun to mak' a minister o' him?"
"Buff? Oh, I don't think we quite know what to make of him."
Mrs. Martin leaned forward. "Hev ye tried a phrenologist?" she asked earnestly.
"No," said Elizabeth, rather startled.
"A sister o' mine hed a boy an' she couldna think what to mak' o' him. He had no—no—whit d'ye ca' it?"
Elizabeth nodded her comprehension.
"Bent?" she suggested.
"Aweel, she tuk him to yin o' thae phrenologists, an' he said he wud be either an auctioneer or a chimist, and," she finished triumphantly, "a chimist he wus!"
CHAPTER V
"Truly I would the gods had made thee poetical."
As You Like It.
In the Seton's drawing-room a company was gathered for tea.
Ellen had remembered