she could not keep it in much longer, and then Tommy would mutter the
one word "Bell" to remind her that it was against the rules to begin
before the Thrums eight-o'clock bell rang. They also wiled away the time
of waiting by inviting each other to conferences at the window where
these whispers passed--

"She ain't got a notion, Tommy."

"Dinna look so often at the bed."

"If I could jest get one more peep at it!"

"No, no; but you can put your hand on the top of it as you go by."

The artfulness of Tommy lured his unsuspecting mother into telling how
they would be holding Hogmanay in Thrums to-night, how cartloads of
kebbock cheeses had been rolling into the town all the livelong day ("Do
you hear them, Elspeth?"), and in dark closes the children were already
gathering, with smeared faces and in eccentric dress, to sally forth as
guisers at the clap of eight, when the ringing of a bell lets Hogmanay
loose. ("You see, Elspeth?") Inside the houses men and women were
preparing (though not by fasting, which would have been such a good way
that it is surprising no one ever thought of it) for a series of visits,
at every one of which they would be offered a dram and kebbock and
bannock, and in the grander houses "bridies," which are a sublime kind
of pie.

Tommy had the audacity to ask what bridies were like. And he could not
dress up and be a guiser, could he, mother, for the guisers sang a song,
and he did not know the words? What a pity they could not get bridies to