And then he’d said something that halted Chris: I’m sorry, mistress, that I drove you to marrying me.

Chris had said Why, Ake! in surprise, and he’d nodded: Ay, a damn mistake. Queer the daft desires that drive folk. I might well have known you’d never mate with me, you’d been spoiled in the beds of ministers and the like. I’d forgotten that like an unblooded loon.

Chris had stood and listened in a kind surprise, beyond fear of being startled or hurt any more by any man of the sons of men who brought their desires their gifts to her. She’d said she’d done all she could to make them happy, and Ake had nodded, Ay, all that she could, but that wasn’t enough, och, she wasn’t to blame. Then he’d said not to fash, things would ravel out in time, he was off for a dander round the Docks.

So he’d gone, leaving Chris to finish the cooking and set the dinner and watch the taxi drive up and take away Miss Lyon’s luggage, a pile of it, and hear the cabman ask if she shouldn’t have hired a lorry instead? And Miss Lyon had said she wanted none of his impudence, she’d had enough of that already, living in a brothel. Chris had started a little, overhearing that, but the cabman just said Faith now, have you so? Trade failing that you’re leaving? and got in and drove off.

And now, the pastry browning fine and Jock the cat purring away, Chris had come out to the noon-time yard to ask Ellen and Ewan what they meant to do over this business of sleeping together without the kirk’s licence and shocking Miss Lyon.

But the picture they made took that plan from her mind, she saw now what it was they were laughing about, they’d gotten in the baby from over next door, the bald-headed father had been left in charge and had wanted to mow his lawn awful bad and the bairn had wakened up in its pram and started a yowl, frustrating the man: till Ellen looked over and said Shall I? And he’d handed it over, all red and thankful, and now Ellen squatted by the rose-bush, the bairn in her lap and was wagging a bloom in front of its nose. And the bairn, near as big and bald as his father, was kicking his legs, gurgling, and burying his nose and mouth in the rose, sniffing, and then kicking some more in delight. And Chris saw Ewan looking down at the two with a look on his face that made her stop.

Not the kind of look at all a young man should have given his quean with a stranger’s bairn—a drowsy content and expectation commingled. Instead, Ewan looked at the two cool and frank, amused and a little bored, as he might at a friend who played with a kitten….

And Chris thought, appalled, Poor Ellen, poor Ellen!

Gowans and Gloag’s had quietened down after the strike, the chaps went back and said to themselves no more of listening to those Communist Bulgars that got you in trouble because of their daftness, damn’t, if the Chinks and the Japs wanted to poison one the other, why shouldn’t they?—they were coarse little brutes, anyhow, like that Dr Fu Manchu on the films. And wee Geordie Bruce that worked in Machines said there was nothing like a schlorich of blood to give a chap a bit twist in the wame. But you, though you weren’t a Red any longer, said to Geordie that he’d done damn little bloodletting against the bobbies; and Norman Cruickshank took Wee Geordie’s nose and gave it a twist, it nearly came off, and said Hey, sample a drop of your own. Christ, and to think it’s red, not yellow!