He got up and said it wasn’t much use marching down the Mile, they’d only get their heads smashed in by the bobbies. Leaflets in the factories wouldn’t help much, no body read leaflets, there were too many about. And the comrade who had suggested reading William Morris had surely meant the Dundee Sunday Post…. What was needed was something light and attractive.

And at that the English quean beside him, ay, a nice leg, got up and said what they wanted was a tanner hop—she said just that, fair vulgar-like, though you’d heard by now that she was a school-ma’am. She said that would bring in members thick and the dances would pay for themselves twice over.

Ewan asked if he’d put that as a resolution? And the schoolteacher said Yes, and Ewan put it, and you heard yourself saying I second that, your ears near burning off your head with shame, Creeping Jay, you were in for it now. And only as you were coming away from the meeting did it dawn on you with a hell of a shock that now you were some kind of ruddy Red.

Ellen waited for Ewan to lock up the room, the air was a stagnant unstirred pool, out by the Crossgate the autumn night lay low in pale saffron over Footforthie. As they turned from the door they could see far down through the winding corridors of the Gallowgate the smoulder of the sun as it lost itself in the smoking lowe of Footforthie by night. Ewan said there was night-work again at the shipyards, even Gowans and Gloag’s were looking up a bit, didn’t look much, did it, like capitalism’s collapse?

They were trudging together up through the streets, half-lighted, smell of urine and old food seeping out from dark doorways, sometimes a grunt as a man would turn in his sleep in the heat, sometimes a snuffle of wakeful children. Ellen said nothing for a little while and Ewan had half-forgotten her when she asked of a sudden: Are you losing heart?

He said Eh? and then Oh, about capitalism? Losing heart would do a lot of good, wouldn’t it?

She said then something, queer kid, he was to remember: Anyhow, your heart’s not in it at all. Only your head and imagination.

—And I’m not in much danger of losing either. You don’t quarrel with History and its pace of change any more than you quarrel with the law of gravitation. History’s instruments, the workers, ’ll turn to us some time—even though it’s only for a sixpenny hop. You or I to see to hiring the hall?

Ellen said she thought it had better be him, the only one suitable was the Lower School, and they didn’t trust her too much there already. And Ewan looked at her, pale kid, tired kid, and felt an indifferent touch of compassion. Where else might she be if it wasn’t for this belief she’d smitten on him?—at a dance, at the pictures, in a pretty dress. And he dropped the thought, with indifference again. Much better as she was, seeing she wasn’t half-witted.