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The last halfpenny was a special aggravation, strolling about, just out of reach, with all the swagger of sixpence, but at last Elspeth had it, and after that, the sooner Hogmanay came the better. They concealed their excitement under too many wrappings, but their mother suspected nothing.
The news was just what was expected; hundreds were waiting aperto ore to receive it; and the moment they did receive it, they fled to communicate the intelligence to others. Guysers, reekers, gossips, and tosspots, laid down their songs, their horns, their scandal, and their stoups, and acknowledged their Hogmanay occupation gone.
'I took the pledge last Martinmas, and I havena touched a drop o' whisky sinsyne. Not even at Hogmanay, though I was sair temptit. He swung his heels up on the seat, and burrowed a frowsy head into the cushions. 'And that's a' I get, he moaned. 'A heid better than hell fire, and twae een lookin' different ways for the Sabbath. 'What did it? I asked. 'A drink they ca' brandy.
When she was dressing on the morning of Hogmanay, her stockings happened to be at the other side of the room, and they were such a long way off that she rested on the way to them. At the meagre breakfast she said what a heavy teapot that was, and Tommy thought this funny, but the salt had gone from the joke when he remembered it afterwards.
"Weel, ae nicht I had come hame worn oot wi' warstlin' to gar bairns eat that had no hunger, I spied upo' the table a bottle o' whusky. A frien' o' mine a grocer he was had sent it across the street to me, for it was hard upo' Hogmanay. I rang the bell incontinent.
For example, on the last day of the year, or Hogmanay as it was called, it used to be customary in the Highlands of Scotland for a man to dress himself up in a cow's hide and thus attired to go from house to house, attended by young fellows, each of them armed with a staff, to which a bit of raw hide was tied.
What might that be in the bed, Elspeth? It couldn't not be their Hogmanay, could it, Tommy? If Tommy was his mother he would look and see. If Elspeth was her mother she would look and see. Her curiosity thus cunningly aroused, Mrs. Sandys raised the coverlet of the bed and there were three bridies, an oatmeal cake, and a hunk of kebbock.
The young folk had a great night of it, and braved the frost to go to the stable door and sing their old Hogmanay rhymes. The feast was plain as plain could be, but contented and merry hearts care not for dainties.
Dec. 31 Made preparation to keep Hogmanay, inviting our two neighbors. Had built a big fire, with a beech back-log, so heavy that an ox had to haul it to the door, and put a smaller one on top, while in front split wood blazed, and made the shanty so light that no candle was needed.
The fire in the two terror-struck women's throats was soon extinguished by the "spark" they demanded; and a conversation, composed of twenty voices at once, commenced, the essence of which was, that, on the occasion of the last Hogmanay, a man dressed in a peculiar manner, with a green doublet, and hose of the same colour, a cravat, and a blue bonnet, had, just as twelve o'clock pealed from the monastery clock, made his appearance in the town, and conducted himself in such a manner as to excite much wonder among the inhabitants.
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