"
Nothing daunted, Robert had gone into the kitchen to ask if they had
anything to give the strikers.
"Get awa' back to yer work, ye lazy loons, ye!" was the reply from old
Mr. Wilson. "Gie ye something for your soup kitchen! Na, na! Ye can gang
an' work, an' pay for your meat. Gang awa' oot owre, and leave the town,
an' dinna come back again." And so they had drawn blank at
Hairyfithill.
"It wad serve him richt, if every tattie in his fields was ta'en awa',"
said Matthew Maitland, after the story had been told and laughed over.
"It wad that," agreed a score of voices; but nothing was done nor
anything further said, so the dancing proceeded.
About two o'clock in the morning while the dancing was still going on
and a fire had been kindled at the corner in which some of the strikers
were roasting potatoes and onions a great commotion was suddenly caused,
when Dickie Tamson and two other boys drove in among them old
Hairyfithill's sow which he was fattening for the market. Some proposed
that the pig be killed at once.
"Oh no, dinna kill it," said Matthew Maitland, with real alarm in his
voice. "Ye'd get into a row for that. Ye'd better tak' it back, or there
may be fun.
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