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After a second of hesitation he began to move cityward, obeying some sheep-like instinct which impelled him to follow those who had gone on before. Baubie saw this, and, just waiting to let him get well under way and settle into his gait, she gathered herself up and sprang across the road upon him with the suddenness and rapidity of a flash. He fairly staggered with surprise.
Nothing loath apparently, Baubie established herself at the end of the fender, and from that coign of vantage watched the on-goings about her with the stoicism of a red Indian.
Miss Mackenzie was thinking to herself that it was possibly Baubie Wishart's first experience of the kind, when she observed the child wince as if she were hurt. "It's yon' as hurts her," said Kate, calling the matron's attention to something on the child's shoulders. They both stooped and saw a long blue-and-red mark a bruise all across her back.
That same night, when the girls were going to bed whether the inspiration still lingered, in spite of soapsuds, about the red frock, and was by it imparted to its owner, or whether it was merely the prompting of that demon of self-assertion that had been tormenting her of late Baubie Wishart volunteered a song, and, heedless of consequences, struck up one of the two which formed her stock in trade.
No answer from Baubie, who seemed to be absorbed in watching the drops running off the end of her little red nose, which played the part of a gargoyle to the rest of her face. Miss Mackenzie repeated the question, sternly almost: "Bauble Wishart, I insist upon knowing who gave you that bruise." "A didna gie't to mysel', mem." was the answer from the figure in the soapsuds.
Wis at a Sunday-schuil too." "Oh, you were? And what did you learn there?" Baubie Wishart looked puzzled, consulted her toes in vain, and then finally gave it up. "I should like to do something for her," observed her first friend: "it is time this street-singing came to an end."
The unfamiliar sounds had not long disturbed the quiet of the house when the matron and Kate, open-eyed with wonder, hastened up to know what was the meaning of this departure from the regular order of things. Baubie heard their approach, and only sang the louder.
It may recall to him misty recollections of communications which followed a course something like this: "And so ye see, auld Pittoddles, when his third wife deed, he got married upon the laird o' Blaithershin's aughteenth daughter, that was sister to Jemima, that was married intil Tam Flumexer, that was first and second cousin to the Pittoddleses, whase brither became laird afterwards, and married Blaithershin's Baubie and that way Jemima became in a kind o' way her ain niece and her ain aunty, an' as we used to say, her gude-brither was married to his ain grannie."
It was tame work to Baubie, who did not love sitting still: "white seam" was a vexation of spirit, and her knitting, in which she had beforehand believed herself an adept, was found fault with. The lassie Grant, as was pointed out to her, could knit more evenly and possessed a superior method of "turning the heel."
But he did send her oot then to sing for money for him, an' the polis had been put to watch her, an' saw her beg, an' took her up to the office, an' came back here for Wishart. An' so before the day was dune they were a' lockit up thegither." Such was the story related to Miss Mackenzie. What was to be done with Baubie now?
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