The players only gave him the side of their eye, and a horrid fear grew on him that they did not know he was a Thrums boy.

"Dagont!" he cried to put them right on that point, but though they paused in their game, it was only to laugh at him uproariously.

Let the historian use an oath for once; dagont, Tommy had said the swear in the wrong place! How fond he had been of that word! Many a time he had fired it in the face of Londoners, and the flash had often blinded them and always him.
Now he had brought it home, and Thrums would have none of it; it was as if these boys were jeering at their own flag.

He tottered away from them until he came to a trance, or passage, where he put his face to the wall and forgot even Elspeth.
He had not noticed a girl pass the mouth of the trance, trying not very successfully to conceal a brandy-bottle beneath her pinafore, but presently he heard shouts, and looking out he saw Grizel, the Painted Lady's child, in the hands of her tormentors.

She was unknown to him, of course, but she hit back so courageously that he watched her with interest, until--until suddenly he retreated farther into the trance.