During the first half of the scholastic day Ballingall's shouts and pounces were for parents to listen to, but after his dinner of crowdy, which is raw meal and hot water, served in a cogie, or wooden bowl, languor overcame him and he would sleep, having first given out a sum in arithmetic and announced: "The one as finds out the answer first, I'll give him his licks." Last comes the Hanky School, which was for the genteel and for the common who contemplated soaring.

You were not admitted to it in corduroys or bare-footed, nor did you pay weekly; no, your father called four times a year with the money in an envelope.

He was shown into the blue-and-white room, and there, after business had been transacted, very nervously on Miss Ailie's part, she offered him his choice between ginger wine and what she falteringly called wh-wh-whiskey.

He partook in the polite national manner, which is thus: "You will take something, Mr.Cortachy ?" "No, I thank you, ma'am." "A little ginger wine ?" "It agrees ill with me." "Then a little wh-wh-whiskey ?" "You are ower kind." "Then may I ?" "I am not heeding." "Perhaps, though, you don't take ?" "I can take it or want it." "Is that enough ?" "It will do perfectly." "Shall I fill it up ?" "As you please, ma'am." Miss Ailie's relationship to the magerful man may be remembered; she shuddered to think of it herself, for in middle-age she retained the mind of a young girl, but when duty seemed to call, this school-mistress could be brave, and she offered to give Elspeth her schooling free of charge.

Like the other two hers was a "mixed" school, but she did not want Tommy, because she had seen him in the square one day, and there was a leer on his face that reminded her of his father.
Another woman was less particular.