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Updated: June 2, 2025
"Are you vexed because we laugh?" she asked. My tongue stung with a retort, but I stood silent. These Varicks might forget their manners, but I might not forget mine. She honored me with a smile, sweeping me from head to foot with her bright eyes. My buckskins were dirty from travel, and the thrums in rags; and I knew that she noted all these matters.
It is true that when I heard who was to be the new minister I hoped for a day that the life broken in Harvie might be mended in Thrums, but two minutes' talk with Gavin showed me that Margaret had kept from him the secret which was hers and mine and so knocked the bottom out of my vain hopes.
On those days, if you were a poor creature and wanted to acknowledge it, you could leave the church for a few minutes and return to it, but the creditable thing was to sit on. Even among the children there was a keen competition, fostered by their parents, to sit each other out, and be in at the death. The other Thrums kirks held the sacrament at the same time, but not with the same vehemence.
Once a year the dominie added to his income by holding cockfights in the old school. This was at Yule, and the same practice held in the parish school of Thrums. It must have been a strange sight. Every male scholar was expected to bring a cock to the school, and to pay a shilling to the dominie for the privilege of seeing it killed there.
Of Jamie's death I do not care to write. He went without many a dinner in order to buy a book. The Coat of Many Colours and Silva Robbie were two street preachers who gave the Thrums ministers some work. They occasionally appeared at the club. The Coat of Many Colours was so called because he wore a garment consisting of patches of cloth of various colours sewed together.
Tommy had said that she loved them because they were such little paths, that they appealed to her like babies; and perhaps there was something in it. She came up the path with the swing of one who was gleefully happy. Some of the Thrums people, you remember, said that Grizel strutted because she was so satisfied with herself, and if you like an ugly word, we may say that she strutted to-day.
Yet the secret must be told: only one copy of the paper came to Thrums weekly; it was subscribed for by the whole reading public between them, and by Miss Ailie's influence Tommy had become the boy who carried it from house to house.
Shovel, who had but one eye, and that bloodshot, fixed it on him threateningly. "The Thames is in London," he said. "'Cos they wouldn't not have it in Thrums," replied Tommy. "'Amstead 'Eath's in London, I tell yer," Shovel said. "The cemetery is in Thrums," said Tommy. "There ain't no queens in Thrums, anyhow." "There's the auld licht minister." "Well, then, if you jest seed Trafalgar Square!"
One memorable morning they set out to avenge their losses; and by and by a halt was called, when each man bowed his head to listen. In Thrums, pipe and drum were calling the inhabitants to arms. Scouts rushed in with the news that the farmers were advancing rapidly upon the town, and soon the streets were clattering with feet.
A policeman's hand on his shoulder could not have taken the wind out of Tommy more quickly. In the act of starting a-running again he brought down his hind foot with a thud and stood stock still. Can any one wonder? It was the Thrums tongue, and this the first time he had heard it except from his mother.
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