. . . . .

And the Reverend Edward MacShilluck in his Manse shook his bald head and pursed his long mouth and said to his housekeeper Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, what they needed in Duncairn were folk like the Fascists, they knew how to keep tink brutes in trim. And this nonsense about the keelies being on strike because Gowans were making shells and gas-cases—well, wasn’t a strong man sure in defence? Wasn’t it the best way to avoid a war for a country to keep a strong army in the field?

The housekeeper simpered and said she was sure, that must have been why the last War had happened, those coarse brutes the Germans and Frenchies, like, had had hardly an army to their name, would it be, and that was why the war had broke out?

The Reverend MacShilluck gave a bit of a cough and said Not quite, you wouldn’t understand. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, a fine thing the War in many a way. Did I ever tell you the story of the nurse and the soldier who was wounded in a certain place, my Pootsy? And the housekeeper, who’d heard it only a hundred times, standing and sitting and lying down, upstairs and downstairs and ben in the kitchen and once in the bathroom, shook her bit head and made out she hadn’t, she’d her living to look after and she’d long grown used to that look that would come in MacShilluck’s eyes, a look she’d once thought in a daft-like minute that stank with the foulest of all foul smells….

. . . . .

Bailie Brown said it was that damn fool the Chief Constable, why hadn’t he kept enough bobbies on hand? The workers were all right, though misled by the Reds, if they’d trusted their natural leaders, like himself, they wouldn’t be in the pickle they were in, drowning a foreman that had aye been a right good Labour man, and throwing pepper in the bobbies’ eyes. They should wait till the next Labour Government came—

. . . . .

The Chief Constable said it was that bloody Inspector, he’d told him to look out for trouble at Gowans. Pepper flung in the eyes of the men—by God, you’d find it revolver-shots next. He was to tell the Council that unless he had powers—

. . . . .

The Provost motored out to his sawmill to get away from the stir and stew, and wandered around, with his long dreich face like a yard of bad milk, till he lighted on Ake level-testing a lathe. And he said Seen the news in the Runner this morning? And Ake asked what news, and the Provost said about the murder down at the Docks, the strikers drowning the old foreman Edwards and then throwing pepper in the police’s eyes. Ake said he’d seen it and hadn’t wept, a scab was a scab wherever you found him though ’twas swollen water-dead in the Duncairn docks or bairning a quean that screamed in a hedge…. And the Provost gave a bit hurried hoast and Ake thought if ever he was walking alone on a dark-like night and Jimmy came on him, he with his bare nieves and Jimmy with a knife, he’d stand as much chance of getting home safe as a celluloid cat that had strayed into hell….