("You see, Elspeth ?") Inside the houses men and women were preparing (though not by fasting, which would have been such a good way that it is surprising no one ever thought of it) for a series of visits, at every one of which they would be offered a dram and kebbock and bannock, and in the grander houses "bridies," which are a sublime kind of pie.
Tommy had the audacity to ask what bridies were like.

And he could not dress up and be a guiser, could he, mother, for the guisers sang a song, and he did not know the words?
What a pity they could not get bridies to buy in London, and learn the song and sing it.

But of course they could not! ("Elspeth, if you tumble off the fender again, she'll guess.") Such is a sample of Tommy, but Elspeth was sly also, if in a smaller way, and it was she who said: "There ain't nothin' in the bed, is there, Tommy!" This duplicity made her uneasy, and she added, behind her teeth, "Maybe there is," and then, "O God, I knows as there is." But as the great moment drew near there were no more questions; two children were staring at the clock and listening intently for the peal of a bell nearly five hundred miles away.
The clock struck.

"Whisht! It's time, Elspeth! They've begun! Come on!" A few minutes afterwards Mrs.Sandys was roused by a knock at the door, followed by the entrance of two mysterious figures.

The female wore a boy's jacket turned outside in, the male a woman's bonnet and a shawl, and to make his disguise the more impenetrable he carried a poker in his right hand.