“Of course I am,” he confessed blythely. “I’ll throw aff a’ disguise and admit my rale name’s Blue-beard, but don’t tell the polis on me. Hard-herted monster--I wad need to be wi’ a wife like you, that canna see a wean oot in the street at nicht withoot the drap at yer e’e. The weans is maybe no’ that bad aff: the nicht air’s no’ waur nor the day air: maybe when they’re oot here they’ll no’ mind they’re hungry.” “Oh, Erchie! see that puir wee lame yin! God peety him!--I maun gie him a penny,” whispered Jinnet, as a child in rags stopped before a jeweller’s window to look in on a magic world of silver cruet-stands and diamond rings and gold watches. “Ye’ll dae naething o’ the kind!” said Erchie. “It wad jist be wastin’ yer money; I’ll bate ye onything his mither drinks.” He pushed his wife on her way past the boy, and, unobserved by her, slipped twopence in the latter’s hand. “I’ve seen the day ye werena sae mean, Erchie MacPherson,” said his wife, vexatiously. “Ye aye brag o’ yer flet fit and yer warm hert.” “It’s jist a sayin’; I’m as mooly’s onything,” said Erchie, and winked to himself. It was not the children of the city alone that engaged Jinnet’s attention; they came to a street where now and then a young man would come from a public-house staggering; she always scanned the young fool’s face with something of expectancy and fear. “Jist aboot his age, Erchie,” she whispered. “Oh, dear! I wonder if that puir callan’ has a mither,” and she stopped to look after the young man in his cups. Erchie looked too, a little wistfully “I’ll wager ye he has,” said he. “And like enough a guid yin; that’s no’ forgettin’ him, though he may gang on the ran-dan; but in her bed at nicht no’ sleepin’, wonderin’ whit’s come o’ him, and never mindin’ onything that was bad in him, but jist a kind o’ bein’ easy-led, but mindin’ hoo smert he was when he was but a laddie, and hoo he won the prize for composeetion in the school, and hoo prood he was when he brocht hame the first wage he got on a Setturday. If God Almichty has the same kind o’ memory as a mither, Jinnet, there’ll be a chance at the hinderend for the warst o’ us.” They had gone at least a mile from home, the night grew wetter and more bitter, the crowds more squalid, Jinnet’s interest in errant belated youth more keen. And never a word of the sweets she had made believe to come out particularly for. They had reached the harbour side; the ships lay black and vacant along the wharfs, noisy seamen and women debauched passed in groups or turned into the public-houses. Far west, into the drizzling night the river lamps stretched, showing the drumly water of the highway of the world. Jinnet stopped and looked and listened. “I think we’re far enough, Erchie; I think we’ll jist gang hame,” said she.