O. Douglas

“ M'Cosh sang four verses and stopped, in spite of the rapturous applause of a section of the audience.
"There's aboot nineteen mair verses," she explained "an' they get kinna worse as they gang on, so I'd better stop," which she did, to Jean's relief, for she saw that her guests were feeling that this was not an entertainment such as the Best People indulged in.
"And now Miss Bathgate will sing," said Mhor.
"I will not sing," said Miss Bathgate. "I've mair pride than make a fool o' mysel' to please folk."
"Oh, come on," Jock begged. "Look at Mrs. M'Cosh!" ”

“ At last the curtains were jerked apart, and revealed what seemed to be a funeral pyre. Branches were piled on the window-seat, and on the top, wrapped in an eiderdown quilt, with a laurel wreath bound round his head, lay David. Jock, with bare legs and black boots, draped in an old-fashioned circular waterproof belonging to Mrs. M'Cosh, stood with arms folded looking at him, while Mhor, almost denuded of clothing, and supported by Peter (who sat with his back to the audience to show his thorough disapproval of the proceedings) , stood at one side. ”

“ I always think, don't you, that there's something awful pathetic about Christmas? You never know where you may be before another."
One of the guests, a little music-teacher, said:
"The worst of Christmas is that it brings back to one's mind all the other Christmasses and the people who were with us then...."
Bella Bathgate's voice was heard talking to Mrs. M'Cosh at the door: "I dinna believe in keeping Christmas; it's a popish festival. New Year's the time. Ye can eat yer currant-bun wi' a relish then. ”

“ Jock yelled, as he grabbed the burning twigs, but it was "Imperial Cæsar, dead and turned to clay," who really put out the fire by rolling on it wrapped in an eiderdown quilt.
"Eh, ye ill callant," said Bella Bathgate.
"Ye wee deevil," said Mrs. M'Cosh, "ye micht hev had us a' burned where we sat, and it Christmas too!"
"What made you do it, sonny?" Jean asked.
"It made it so real," Mhor explained, "and I knew we could always throw them out of the window if they really blazed. What's the use of having a funeral pyre if you don't light it?" ”

“ If I had been in our own house I would just have rushed out screaming, but when you're away from home you've more feeling of responsibility and I just stood on a chair and pulled at the curtain till I brought it down and stamped on it. ”

“ God have mercy on us."
She regarded him with disapproving eyes as a thoroughly uncomfortable character.
One of the guests sang a drawing-room ballad in which the words "dear heart" seemed to occur with astonishing frequency. Then the entertainment took a distinctly lower turn.
David and Jock sang a song composed by themselves and set to a hymn tune, a somewhat ribald production. Mhor then volunteered the information that Mrs. M'Cosh could sing a song. Mrs. ”